‘That’s why I’ve never teched iron since that day—not to build a toy ship of. I’ve never even drawed a draft of one for my pleasure of evenings.’ Simon smiled down on them all.
‘Whitgift blood is terrible resolute—on the she-side,’ said Puck.
‘Didn’t you ever see Sir Francis Drake again?’ Dan asked.
‘With one thing and another, and my being made a burgess of Rye, I never clapped eyes on him for the next twenty years. Oh, I had the news of his mighty doings the world over. They was the very same bold, cunning shifts and passes he’d worked with beforetimes off they Dutch sands, but, naturally, folk took more note of them. When Queen Bess made him knight, he sent my Aunt a dried orange stuffed with spiceries to smell to. She cried outrageous on it. She blamed herself for her foretellings, having set him on his won’erful road; but I reckon he’d ha’ gone that way all withstanding. Curious how close she foretelled it! The world in his hand like an apple, an’ he burying his best friend, Mus’ Doughty——’
‘Never mind for Mus’ Doughty,’ Puck interrupted. ‘Tell us where you met Sir Francis next.’
‘Oh, ha! That was the year I was made a burgess of Rye—the same year which King Philip sent his ships to take England without Frankie’s leave.’
‘The Armada!’ said Dan contentedly. ‘I was hoping that would come.’
‘I knowed Frankie would never let ’em smell London smoke, but plenty good men in Rye was two-three minded about the upshot. ‘Twas the noise of the gun-fire terrified us. The wind favoured it our way from off behind the Isle of Wight. It made a mutter like, which growed and growed, and by the end of a week women was shruckin’ in the streets. Then they come sliddering past Fairlight in a great smoky pat vambrished with red gun-fire, and our ships flying forth and ducking in again. The smoke-pat sliddered over to the French shore, so I knowed Frankie was edging the Spanishers toward they Dutch sands where he was master. I says to my Aunt, “The smoke’s thinning out. I lay Frankie’s just about scrapin’ his hold for a few last rounds shot. ‘Tis time for me to go.“
‘“Never in them clothes,” she says. “Do on the doublet I bought you to be made burgess in, and don’t you shame this day.”
‘So I mucked it on, and my chain, and my stiffed Dutch breeches and all.