shoulders were seized by a pair of hands, someone leapt upon his back and clambered over him, crushing him down under two heavy boots. When the weight was removed from him he looked up and saw young Timothy Trollope scaling the tree with astonishing speed.
"Help! help! or I shall fall!" cried Gilbert Oglander.
"Hold but another moment," returned Timothy; and ascending to the branch from which Gilbert was hanging he worked his way along it, and, leaning over like a very monkey, caught the lad in his one strong right arm and raised him bodily up to a position of safety.
For some minutes the two lads sat astride the bough facing each other, speaking never a word.
"Certes," cried Gilbert at last, breaking the silence, "'twas a narrow escape that! I was as near as might be to falling."
"In sooth I believe you were," agreed Timothy; "and it had been a goodly fall whichever way you had landed."
"But for your timely help I should have been sorely hurt for a certainty," remarked Gilbert; and then after a brief pause he added: "Prithee, how shall I reward you withal?"
"Nay, I need no reward, and will take none," returned Timothy.
"Yea, but you shall have a suitable recompense; for it hath cost you something as I see," said Gilbert. "Look at your doublet, 'tis torn down the front. And you have scratched your face too."
Timothy examined into his own hurts and said with a careless smile:
"Tut! 'tis nothing. Both the rent and the scratch will easily mend; whereas if your worship had fallen to the ground it must surely have been a matter for the physician, and haply a month's idleness in your bed. And now, so please you, we will, if you are ready, climb down again, for Sir Richard Grenville is calling to you, bidding you tell him if you are hurt."
When the two had got down to the ground again, it was to find that Drusilla had run off to a farther end of the meadow, where a double row of giant trees marked the long avenue leading up from the lodge gates to Modbury Manor. From where he stood Timothy could hear the sound of horses' feet and the jingling of stirrups and harness. It was the hawking party returning from the chase, and not until he saw them among the trees of the avenue did he remember the resolve he had made a little while before, to seek out his lordship's steward and ask him for work in the stables. Turning to Master Gilbert Oglander, who was on the point of following Drusilla, Timothy ventured to say:
"I beg your honour's pardon, but since you were so gracious a moment ago as to offer me a favour in return for the slight help I gave you, I have a boon that I would ask of you."
"Name it," demanded Gilbert.
"Ay, name it, lad," urged Sir Richard Grenville, playfully slapping Tim on his broad back. "Thou'rt a deserving boy, that hath the makings of a man in him, and shalt have whatsoever boon thou dost name. So out with it, and be not over-modest in thy request."
Timothy's eyes rested still upon the handsome young countenance of Master Gilbert Oglander.
"'Tis this that I would crave," said he, "that you would by your favour help me to get work as a stable-boy or a shepherd or a falconer in his lordship your grandfather's service."
Gilbert Oglander nodded and said smilingly:
"Gladly will I do that for you, Master Trollope; ay, and more, for it seemeth to me you are fit for better work than to groom horses or to feed greedy hawks; and, moreover, I have taken somewhat of a fancy to you." He looked aside at Sir Richard Grenville. "What say you, Captain Grenville?" he questioned. "Dost think he'll do in the place of Will Leigh? Will is about to join Her Majesty's service, you know."
Thus appealed to, Sir Richard spoke very highly of Timothy Trollope, and added that he would himself see Lord Champernoun touching the matter. And at this Timothy thanked them both and presently turned on his way back to Plymouth, overjoyed at the new prospect that had so unexpectedly opened out before him.
As he trudged homeward along the leafy lanes he sang over and over again the snatch of a song of the time:
"I would not be a serving-man
To carry the cloak-bag still,
Nor would I be a falconer
The greedy hawks to fill;
But I would be in a good house,
And have a good master too;
And I would eat and drink of the best,
And no work would I do."
It was not many days afterwards that Lord Champernoun, riding into Plymouth, halted at the sign of the Pestle and Mortar and informed the barber-surgeon that his son Timothy was to consider himself engaged as squire and personal attendant to Master Gilbert. His lordship gave instructions that Timothy was to go at once to Silas Quiller, the tailor, to be measured for two suits of the Oglander livery, and that as soon as the lad was fitted-out he was to repair to the manor and to begin his duties.
Those duties were very simple, as Timothy early discovered. He was to act as valet to the young heir of Modbury; to comb his hair in the mornings, keep his wardrobe in good order, attend him on his journeys, and do his bidding in all things. At the first Timothy was very humble, as he deemed it his duty to be; but as the months went on and he acquired some of the manners of the gentlefolk among whom he was placed, he became more familiar with his young master, who treated him more as a companion and a playmate than as a servant. Yet Timothy never overstepped the limits of his position, but was always respectful and submissive and loyal.
CHAPTER III.
THE MAN WITH THE SCARRED CHEEK.
ON a certain afternoon in December, Gilbert Oglander and Timothy Trollope were loitering on the heights of Plymouth Hoe on their way into the town. They were looking out across the Sound, watching the movements of a ship that was drifting inward with the tide. A breeze from off the sea swelled the vessel's worn and mended topsails; she moved with a slow, lazy motion, as if in very weariness. The lads were questioning what manner of ship she might be and whence she had come.
"'Tis an old Hollander putting in for repairs," ventured Gilbert. "I warrant me she hath suffered some damage in the storm of yesternight."
Timothy shook his head, and then, after a short pause, he said:
"No, Master Gilbert, she is no foreigner at all, but one of our own brave English adventurers. Look at the tattered flag waving from the staff on her after-castle. 'Tis the red cross of St. George. And by the decayed and grimy look of her, I'd judge that she hath been on some long and perilous voyage—it may be to far Cathay, or the scorching coasts of Africa, or it may even be to the Western Indies of which we have heard so much."
"An that be so," returned Gilbert as he stood gazing with wondering eyes upon the approaching ship, "methinks there will be some very strange surprising things for us to see and hear when she droppeth anchor in the haven yonder. She is deeply laden, look you. 'Tis the bars of silver in her hold that do weigh her down, or else the heavy chests of gold and precious stones. Ay, 'tis surely from the Spanish Main that she hath come; for now as she beareth round I can e'en see the shining gold-dust clinging to her sides from out her port-holes like flour-drift from out the windows of Modbury Mill."
Timothy smiled incredulously and moved apart from his companion.
"'Tis no gold-dust that you see, my master," said he, "but only the red iron from off her rust-eaten chains. Come, let us walk down unto the harbour, that we may get a nearer view of her and see what manner of voyagers she bringeth home."
They walked together down the grassy slopes. In aspect, as in their natures, they differed one from the other as much as a heavy Flemish horse differs from an agile Arab steed. Timothy looked much the elder, although in truth he was his master's senior by no more than