At the foot of the hill leading out of Blakeney northwards towards Newnham stood a many-gabled, substantial farmhouse. A plantation of oaks backed it, and eastwards the meadows stretched away to the Severn. The house was in the possession of John Morgan, a verderer[1] of the forest, and the good folk of the forest and river were proud to point to him as a "proper figure of a man." "Johnnie," as he was familiarly styled by his associates, stood a good two inches over six feet, was straight as a fir and tough as a young oak. He had just turned his twentieth year, and was as fleet of foot as the stags that he guarded. Dark-eyed and handsome, light-hearted and jovial, a good singer of a good song, he was as jolly a companion as one might meet on a long summer's day.
The morning was hot, and the June sun almost at its zenith. The gale that had rocked the tall trees in fury but a few days before was almost forgotten in the windless weather that had succeeded it. Master Morgan had sauntered along one of the broad woodland paths, and was now lying on his back in a sweet-smelling bed of bracken, gazing up through the trees to the blue sky beyond. Johnnie was dreaming the happy dreams of youth and the summer's noontide. The blue of the heavens haloed his thoughts, and a pair of sweet blue eyes looked out from the midst of them. A sigh escaped him. "Plague on 't!" he cried petulantly, "I cannot get verses or rhymes into marching order. My head aches with a tumble of conceits and dainty fancies. I could whisper a thousand pretty things to yonder perky robin; I cannot give tongue to one of them when Mistress Dorothy turns her eyes upon me; and now that my heart yearns to set them in verse for her reading, I cannot frame a line that doth not limp and stumble. What a thing it is that I can sing the tears into mine eyes with another fellow's verses and cannot build a couplet of mine own." Johnnie closed his eyes, puckered his brow, and thought hard.
For the better part of an hour Morgan had the cool nook in the woodland all to himself, and he dreamt of a pair of blue eyes, rhymed them with "skies," joined "love" with "dove," "sweet" with "fleet," "rosy" with "posy," and "heart" with "part," and cudgelled his brains for images and conceits that would express in some scant measure the charms of pretty Mistress Dorothy Dawe. But his lines would not prance and curvet as he wished them to do; they laboured along in a heavy, cart-horse fashion, so that Johnnie at length reluctantly recalled his wandering wits to the consideration of the practical things of life. And, immediately upon doing so, he became conscious of the presence of an intruder upon his privacy. Some one was moving very stealthily through the bracken; the young forester detected the quick breathing of a man and he held his own breath in an instant, whilst his body remained as rigid as though it had been a fallen log of oak. He cast his eye down the line of buttons on the front of his doublet and carefully scanned his belt. It held no weapon save a hunting-knife. His hearing became doubly acute at a sign of danger, and he fixed the spot from which each faint rustle proceeded. Meanwhile his brain was busy. Who should be stealing along within a few yards of the pathway? No game was afoot in the immediate neighbourhood, and no forester would be worming himself along in such a fashion. An honest man would walk upright. "This fellow is a rogue," commented Morgan. The bracken fronds curled high above him, and he knew that he was securely hidden. The rustling sounds circled round rather than approached him, and they finally ceased at a spot on the edge of the pathway about twenty yards below where Morgan lay listening.
The forester remained very still; the other made no sign. Morgan came to the conclusion that his presence was unsuspected, so he lay in wait to see what was afoot. Time flew on; to one, at least, the silence became irksome.
Sounds at last! Some one was coming down the pathway humming a song. The spy—for such he was—stirred. Morgan noiselessly raised himself on his elbow. The singer came on; his voice was rich and musical, and the young fellow's ears tingled with pleasure. He ventured to peep above the bracken. A dark form was half visible in front of him, and the face was turned towards the direction whence the song was coming. The head disappeared; Morgan ducked also. He could give no guess as to the identity of the man who lay before him. But his mind was made up as to the spy's intentions. Villainy was plainly foreshadowed. He drew his knife from his belt. The footfalls of the traveller were now audible. He came abreast of the lurking foe; he passed him. There was a sudden leap; then another. A steel blade flashed in the sunlight. The song ceased and the singer turned. Another second and the dagger would have been in his breast. But at the fateful moment of time the stroke was arrested by Morgan's hand. The would-be assassin turned with the hiss and wriggle of a viper; his strength was astonishing, and, ere Morgan was aware, the sharp stab entered his own arm. He loosened his grip with an exclamation of pain. The spy darted like a black shadow into the trees—and was gone.
After an instant of hesitation Morgan and the stranger dashed after him. They ran hither and thither, but found nothing. On the pathway they met again, and, for the first time, spoke. He whose life had been attempted took Morgan's wounded arm in his hands. "I owe thee, if not a life, at least a whole skin," he said. "I am deeply thy debtor."
"Sir Walter Raleigh can owe nothing to a forest man," exclaimed Morgan.
"Ah! thou knowest me. What is thy name?"
"John Morgan, heart and soul at your service!"
"I have heard of thee from my kinsman, and the reports were of an excellent quality. Come, let me see to thy hurt. We can gossip afterwards."