"Time enough for that," he said to himself. "I'll talk at greater length to Bob to-morrow; and as no ships will be sailing westward ho! until the spring comes again, I may as well leave talking for a later day, and make my plans now in silence."
The party from the forest spent another week in London, and during that time Johnnie went twice to Whitehall, on the second occasion taking Dorothy with him. The Queen was very gracious to her pretty subject from the west, and praised her beauty openly. Yet, in spite of the royal condescension, Dolly felt terribly afraid, and owned to Raleigh that she was very glad to get outside the palace doors again.
On another day the knight took them to the play on the other side of the river, where they saw a comedy of Ben Jonson's. After the play the captain went to see the bear-baiting in the bear-pit hard by, but the two young people preferred a trip on the river as far as Chelsea. This was a very busy and momentous day, for in the evening Master Jeffreys took Morgan down to the "Mermaid Tavern" between Wood Street and Milk Street, where Raleigh was presiding over a gathering of the "Mermaid Club," and there the young countryman found himself in a very nest of poets—Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe, Sidney, and Raleigh himself. In after years he hardly knew which to call the most notable moment in his life—the one when he kissed his Queen's hand, or the one when he drank a cup of sack with the greatest wits and geniuses of his age.
When the Severn-side folks went westwards again, Paignton Rob accompanied them; for Johnnie had invited the mariner to make his home with him during the winter, purposing in the spring to go with him on a first voyage to the New World.
Chapter XXIV.
TWO CHANCE WAYFARERS.
It was the feast of St. Thomas, the sky gray blue, with a pale, cold-looking sun, the Queen's highway frozen into an iron hardness, and the pools and ditches frost-bound. The wind had shaken the hoar from the trees and hedges, and the holly-berries stood out in brilliant bunches against the dark green of the encircling leaves. Along the road between Bristol and Gloucester, and, but for the wintry haze that narrowed the horizon, within sight of the latter city, trudged a burly fellow, staff in hand and a sea song on his lips. His thick shoon awoke echoes from hedge to hedge, and his iron-shod staff rang in unison. Hosen of warm, gray homespun covered his legs, and he had a doublet of the same goodly stuff; a cap, trimmed with otter-skin, was pulled down tightly over his ears, and an ample cloak of somewhat gaudy blue flapped in the keen wind; rime, and tiny beads of frozen vapour, hung like pearls in his black beard. He rolled in his walk as a sailor should, and sometimes he whistled the air of his song by way of change from the singing of the words.
"Then ho! for the Spanish Main,
And ha! for the Spanish gold;
King Philip's ships are riding deep
With the weight of wealth untold.
They're prey for the saucy lads
Who dance on the Plymouth Hoe;
They'll all sail home thro' the fleecy foam,
With a rich galleon in tow-tow-tow,
With a rich galleon in tow!"
The mariner swung his staff in rhythm with the swing of his chorus, and his hearty voice pealed out like a trumpet on the sharp air.