"Surely, sweet chuck, we three are enough to take two poor polecats of Jesuits.Go in, and help me to boot and gird."In half an hour they were down and up across the valley again, under the few low ashes clipt flat by the sea-breeze which stood round the lonely gate of Chapel.
"Mr.Cary, there is a back path across the downs to Marsland; go and guard that." Cary rode off; and Sir Richard, as he knocked loudly at the gate--"Mr.Leigh, you see that I have consulted your honor, and that of your poor uncle, by adventuring thus alone.What will you have me do now, which may not be unfit for me and you?""Oh, sir!" said Amyas, with tears in his honest eyes, "you have shown yourself once more what you always have been--my dear and beloved master on earth, not second even to my admiral Sir Francis Drake.""Or the queen, I hope," said Grenville, smiling, "but pocas palabras.What will you do?""My wretched cousin, sir, may not have returned--and if I might watch for him on the main road--unless you want me with you.""Richard Grenville can walk alone, lad.But what will you do with your cousin?""Send him out of the country, never to return; or if he refuses, run him through on the spot.""Go, lad." And as he spoke, a sleepy voice asked inside the gate, "Who was there?""Sir Richard Grenville.Open, in the queen's name?""Sir Richard? He is in bed, and be hanged to you.No honest folk come at this hour of night.""Amyas!" shouted Sir Richard.Amyas rode back.
"Burst that gate for me, while I hold your horse."Amyas leaped down, took up a rock from the roadside, such as Homer's heroes used to send at each other's heads, and in an instant the door was flat on the ground, and the serving-man on his back inside, while Sir Richard quietly entering over it, like Una into the hut, told the fellow to get up and hold his horse for him (which the clod, who knew well enough that terrible voice, did without further murmurs), and then strode straight to the front door.It was already opened.The household had been up and about all along, or the noise at the entry had aroused them.
Sir Richard knocked, however, at the open door; and, to his astonishment, his knock was answered by Mr.Leigh himself, fully dressed, and candle in hand.
"Sir Richard Grenville! What, sir! is this neighborly, not to say gentle, to break into my house in the dead of night?""I broke your outer door, sir, because I was refused entrance when I asked in the queen's name.I knocked at your inner one, as Ishould have knocked at the poorest cottager's in the parish, because I found it open.You have two Jesuits here, sir! and here is the queen's warrant for apprehending them.I have signed it with my own hand, and, moreover, serve it now, with my own hand, in order to save you scandal--and it may be, worse.I must have these men, Mr.Leigh.""My dear Sir Richard--!"
"I must have them, or I must search the house; and you would not put either yourself or me to so shameful a necessity?""My dear Sir Richard!--"
"Must I, then, ask you to stand back from your own doorway, my dear sir?" said Grenville.And then changing his voice to that fearful lion's roar, for which he was famous, and which it seemed impossible that lips so delicate could utter, he thundered, "Knaves, behind there! Back!"This was spoken to half-a-dozen grooms and serving-men, who, well armed, were clustered in the passage.
"What? swords out, you sons of cliff rabbits?" And in a moment, Sir Richard's long blade flashed out also, and putting Mr.Leigh gently aside, as if he had been a child, he walked up to the party, who vanished right and left; having expected a cur dog, in the shape of a parish constable, and come upon a lion instead.They were stout fellows enough, no doubt, in a fair fight: but they had no stomach to be hanged in a row at Launceston Castle, after a preliminary running through the body by that redoubted admiral and most unpeaceful justice of the peace.
"And now, my dear Mr.Leigh," said Sir Richard, as blandly as ever, "where are my men? The night is cold; and you, as well as I, need to be in our beds.""The men, Sir Richard--the Jesuits--they are not here, indeed.""Not here, sir?"