Sir Mortimer | Page 6

are pleased to give me.
God smiles upon me--perhaps He smiles with contempt!... I would that
I had followed, not led, that day at Fayal!"
Arden burst into a laugh. The Admiral turned and stared at him who
had spoken with a countenance half severity, half deep affection. "What!
stings that yet?" he said. "I think you may have that knowledge of
yourself that you were born to lead, and that knowledge of higher
things that shame is of the devil, but defeat ofttimes of God. How idly
do we talk to-day!"
"Idly enough," agreed Ferne with a quick sigh. He lifted his hands from
the other's shoulders, and with an effort too instantaneous to be
apparent shook off his melancholy. Arden took up his hat and swung
his short cloak over his shoulder.
"Since we may not fight," he said, "I'll e'en go play. There's a pretty
lady hard by who loves me dearly. I'll go tell her tales of the Carib
beauties. Master Sedley, you are for the court, I know. Would the gods
had sent me such a sister! Do you go to Leicester House, Mortimer? If
not, my fair Discretion hath a mate--"
"I," answered Ferne, "am also for Greenwich."
Arden laughed again. "Her Grace gives you yet another audience? Or is
it that hath come to court that Nonpareil, that radiant Incognita, that
be-rhymed Dione at whose real name you keep us guessing? I thought
the violet satin was not for naught!"

"In that you speak with truth," said the other, coolly, "for thirty acres of
good Devon land went to its procuring. Since you are for the court,
Henry Sedley, one wherry may carry the two of us."
When the two adventurers and the boy in blue and silver had made half
the distance to the pleasant palace where, like a flight of multicolored
birds, had settled for the moment Elizabeth's migratory court, the
gentlemen became taciturn and fell at length to silent musing, each
upon his own affairs. The boy liked it not, for their discourse had been
of armor and devices, of war-horses and Spanish swords, and such
knightly matters as pleased him to the marrow. He himself
(Robin-a-dale they called him) meant to be altogether such a one as his
master in violet satin. Not a sea-dog simply and terrible fighter like
Captain Manwood or Ambrose Wynch, nor a ruffler like Baldry, nor
even a high, cold gentleman like Sir John, who slew Spaniards for the
good of God and the Queen, and whose slow words when he was
displeased cut like a rope's end. But he would fight and he would sing;
he would laugh with his foe and then courteously kill him; he would
know how to enter the presence, how to make a great Queen smile and
sigh; and then again, amid the thunder and reek of the fight, on decks
slippery with blood, he would strain, half naked, with the mariners, he
would lead the boarders, he would deal death with a flashing sword and
a face that seen through the smoke wreaths was so calm and high!--And
the Queen might knight him--one day the Queen might knight him.
And the people at home, turning in the street, would look and cry, "'Tis
Sir Robert Dale!" as now they cry "Sir Mortimer Ferne!"
Robin-a-dale drew in his breath and clenched his hands with
determination; then, the key being too high for long sustaining, came
down to earth and the contemplation of the bright-running Thames, its
shifting banks, and the shipping on its bosom. The river glided between
tall houses, and there were voices on the water, sounding from stately
barges, swift-plying wherries, ships at anchor, both great and small.
Over all played mild sunshine, hung pale blue skies. The boy thought
of other rivers he had seen and would see again, silent streams gliding
through forests of a fearful loveliness, miles of churned foam rushing
between black teeth of jagged rock to the sheer, desperate,

earth-shaking cataract, liquid highways to the realms of strange dreams!
He turned involuntarily and met his master's eye. Between these two,
master and boy, knave and knight, there was at times so strange a
comprehension that Robin-a-dale was scarcely startled to find that his
thoughts had been read.
"Ay, Robin," said Ferne, smiling, "other and stranger waters than those
of Father Thames! And yet I know not. Life is one, though to-day we
glide through the sunshine to a fair Queen's palace, and to-morrow we
strive like fiends from hell for those two sirens, Lust of Gold and Lust
of Blood. Therefore, Robin, an you toss your silver brooch into the
Thames it may come to hand on the other side of the world, swirling
towards you in some Arethusa fountain."
"I see the