That was how I summed the matter up; but, as you will see hereafter, it had been greatly better for us all if Tubal Ammon had been lying dead upon the road behind me.
CHAPTER I
Concerning "A Certain Person"
It was on the tenth day of June, in the year sixteen hundred and eighty-five (and three days after my first meeting with Tubal Ammon), when, as you know, King James the Second had scarce been three months on his quaking throne, that I, Michael Fane, of Lyme Regis, in the county of Dorset, fell headlong, as it were, and quite unwittingly, into such a pother of adventure, mystery, and trouble, as few men--let alone a youth, as I then was--may hope to come through with their lives. That, however, by a rare good fortune, having been my lot, I am minded, now in these peaceful days, when good King William rules us with a firm, wise hand, to set down, for all of you who care to read it, a full and true account of what befell me in those throbbing months of blood and warfare.
To begin, then (as my old preceptor, Master Pencraft, used to put it), at the right end of the rope, I was summoned before breakfast on that bright June morning to my father's study, in our old house, The Havering, just outside the town, where we two lived together, my mother having died three years before.
Now, although we were ever early risers at The Havering, I had never known my father require me to attend on him at such an hour (it being scarcely half-past six); but recollecting that I was eighteen that very day, the thought of some present being at the bottom of the matter added speed to the steps of filial duty as I hurried to the study.
I found my father seated, quill in hand, very stiff and upright at his table, on which some papers were spread out before him; while at his elbow stood the hour-glass to which he still clung, because, as he said, the ticking of a clock disturbed his thoughts. The sunlight falling on his whitened hair and beard made them shine like silver; and I remember, too, that through the open window came the gladsome morning song of birds. In truth, there could scarce have been a sight which promised more of peace and less of violence.
As I entered, my father looked up at me with those keen, deep-set eyes which could still flash fire for all their nearly seventy years of use.
"Good morning to you, Michael!" said he.
"Good morning to you, sir!" I answered, feeling some uneasiness, for the flickering smile with which he greeted me had scarcely touched his face before it vanished, leaving him grave and solemn as a judge; so that I stood there with my hand upon the door-latch, wondering swiftly which of my many sins had found me out.