“AN EXCELLENT repast, fair mistress, and one I warrant you well appreciated.”

Black’erchief Dick pushed the empty platter from before him, leaned back in his seat, and looked round the room with approval.

It was six o’clock in the morning; and although only a faint grayish light was beginning to steal in the windows and the air was cool and slightly rum-tainted, the kitchen in the old Ship Inn presented a cheerful and lively scene of domestic bustle. The fire, though newly lighted, blazed brightly and the logs, some with the hoar-frost still glittering on them, crackled and spat merrily.

Hal, his boyish face glowing after a hasty splash at the well-nigh frozen pump, hastened to and fro from the scullery to the kitchen, bearing great trays of newly washed tankards, while Sue, a little paler than on the preceding night, but all the same retaining most of her usual good humour, her sleeves rolled high above her elbows and a sail-cloth apron tied about her waist, appeared from time to time in the open doorway between the kitchen and the back scullery, whence the pleasant smell of cooking emerged.

Gilbot was yet abed but his seat with its old hay-stuffed cushions was put in readiness for his coming, in his favourite corner by the fireplace.

One of the long tressle-tables had been pulled out into the wider part of the room clear of the high-backed seats and it was here, one at either end of the table, that Black’erchief Dick and Big French sat in tall, wooden, box-like chairs, finishing the first meal of the day.

Anny waited on them.

This morning she was more beautiful than on the evening before. At least so thought the Spaniard as he watched her trip to and fro with a wooden platter or an earthen pitcher of home-brewed ale in her hands. Her cheeks seemed to him to have more colour in them, her little bare feet, as they pattered over the stones, more elasticity and lightness of touch, and her wonderful, shadowed green eyes, more mirth and gaiety than he had noticed before. As she moved about she sang little snatches of old songs in a lulling, childish voice, tuneful and sweet.

The Spaniard’s white fingers kept time to the simple refrain almost without his knowing it; he caught himself silently repeating the words after her, and he laughed abruptly and then looked round him so fiercely that none dared ask the jest.

It was absurd, he told himself, he, Black’erchief Dick, smuggler, chief of all the Eastern coast, Captain of the Coldlight, and owner of six other good sailing-vessels in the trade, to waste his time humming tunes after a serving-wench, a pretty lass of some seventeen years, who served rum to a pack of greasy fishermen in a wayside tavern on the almost uninhabited end of a mud island, when there were women in France, in Spain—he shrugged his shoulders, and to take his thoughts off the girl he ran his mind over the events of the preceding night.

“Friend,” he said suddenly, wiping his lips with a dainty handkerchief, “that same woman who so vilely returned my alms yesternight, what say’st thou is her name?”

Big French sat up and yawned.

“Oh!” he said, “that was Nan Swayle.”

At the sound of his voice Anny, who had been attending to the fire on the other side of the room, came forward and stood at the end of the table, looking at the pair with wide-open, serious eyes.

“Nan Swayle,” the Spaniard rolled the name round his tongue thoughtfully. “Ah, didst say she had been ducked as a witch?”

Big French laughed.

“Ay,” he said, “at the Restoration of the King, and a mirthful figure she made, Captain, her thumbs and great toes tied crossways—so,” and he chuckled at the thought of it.

Anny leant forward, her face flushed and her eyes bright. “A cruel jest, Master French, to so ill-treat a poor woman as far from being a witch as you an angel.”

Black’erchief Dick regarded her excited little form and earnest eyes with open admiration.

“Marry, Mistress,” he said, “what a friend thou art to Mother Swayle! May I ask what she has done for thee?”

Anny dropped her eyes before the Spaniard’s smile.

“She was ever good to me, sir,” she said.

Big French grinned.

“Ay, Anny,” he said, “Nan Swayle’s good will is about all which thy grandsire has ever given you, isn’t it?”

The girl flushed and Sue and Hal stepped forward to listen.

Dick looked puzzled.

“Thy grandsire, Mistress?” he enquired.

Anny reddened again.

“’Tis an old story, sir,” she murmured.

“Prithee, Master French,” the Spaniard turned lazily and looked at the young man. “Prithee tell it.”

French shrugged his shoulders.

“’Tis naught,” he said carelessly, “save that in their youth old Ben Farran—the lass’s grandsire—and Nan Swayle, a sweet wench they say she was then—’tis strange what the rum will do to a woman’s face—well, Captain, they were—as you might say, sweethearts.”

He raised his eyes to Sue at the last word, but she was engrossed in the Spaniard, and looking away again he went on: “Well, Captain—Ben was a sailor—on the Eliza he was—and there he got the taste for rum pretty bad, and Nan, she couldn’t get the stuff for him so when Pet Salt came along—Pet o’ the Saltings she was then—with her begging tricks, the old devil left the one for the other. That’s all,” he concluded.

“Ah!” the Spaniard smiled, “a pretty story,” and then turning to Anny, “And so, Mistress, Nan Swayle hath a soft heart for thee, eh?”

“Ay, sir, she is very good to Red and me,” Anny said demurely.

“Red? And who might Red be?” The Spaniard looked up quickly. “A lover?”

Anny blushed again.

“Nay, sir, my little brother,” she said softly. “He lives with Mother Swayle.”

“So!” The thin, straight eyebrows on the olive brow rose in two arches. “I thought thy mother died when thou wast born?”

Big French broke in quickly.

“Ay,” he said, “she did. The lad, Red, a fine child and one I love, was brought home from the South by young Ruddy, the wench’s father, the trip before his last—drowned he was, peace to him.”

“Oh!” the eyebrows straightened themselves. Black’erchief Dick turned once more to Anny. “And so my little beauty hath only Nan Swayle to take care of her,” he said, smiling at her kindly as though she had been a child.

“Nay!” The word escaped from Hal Grame’s lips before he had time to stop it. Immediately the Spaniard’s glittering black eyes were turned on the young Norseman. They took in every detail of his appearance, the coarse scarlet homespun shirt, the white throat, and girlish pink and white face crowned with golden-yellow elf locks, and the deep blue eyes which faltered and fell before the Spaniard’s as they bent on the boy in an amused stare.

“Indeed, sir, and who else?” Black’erchief Dick spoke negligently, the smile still on his lips.

The boy blushed and would not meet the other’s eyes.

“We look after our wenches at the Ship,” he said gruffly.

Dick laughed.

“Of course you do, O knight of the Spigot,” he said genially. “Believe me, sir, I had no meaning to cast a slur upon the fame of your house.”

“Ah, ’tis well, then,” and without looking up Hal began to clear away the delf from the now dismantled table.

Dick watched him march off with a tray of dirty crockery in his hands, then he shrugged his shoulders.

“Marry, what a joskin!” he said at last.

Anny opened her mouth to speak but checked herself and laughed instead.

Dick looked up at her.

“Mistress,” he said, “might I beg thee to hie to the gate and tell me if thou see’st aught of my rapscallion mate, Master Blueneck?”

“Ay, sir.”

Anny was halfway to the door when Sue ran after her.

“I’ll with thee,” she said.

Dick looked after them.

“A marvellous pretty wench but wondrous evilly clothed,” he said.

“What, Sue?” Big French spoke in great surprise. The Spaniard smiled.

“Cunning dog!” he said under his breath. “Nay, ’twas the other I meant,” he said quietly.

“Oh!” Big French laughed. “The lass has to wear her mistress’s cast-off,” he said.

“Indeed. Her mistress? Is Sue then mistress of the Ship?”

“Mistress Sue,” said French, laying stress on the first word, “is niece to Master Gilbot.”

“Eh? eh? What’s that?” said Gilbot, who had just come in, looking up at the sound of his name. “Plague on you all disturbing me,” And then looking round, “Where’s Hal?”

“You are out of humour this morning, host,” observed the Spaniard good-humouredly.

“No,” Gilbot’s voice quavered more than ever. “Ain’t had time to get happy yet, that’s all.”

“Oh!” Dick looked up, his eyes twinkling merrily. “Will you drink a stoup of sack with me, mine host?”

Gilbot brightened visibly.

“Be happy to,” he said quickly and then called loudly for Hal, who presently came in flushed and still a little sulky.

Dick gave the order, and the boy obeyed sullenly, slopping a good gill of the wine over the side of the tankard as he handed it to the Spaniard. Then suddenly, as though realizing the absurdity of his childishness, he drew it back, and, mumbling something about not quite the full measure, filled it up again, wiped the pewter with the skirt of his sacking apron before he once more offered it to the Spaniard, who stood looking through the open door without apparently having noticed the boy at all. Now, however, he took the tankard, drained it at a draught and threw down a silver coin by way of payment.

“Marry, master tapster,” he said approvingly, “I do not look to find a sweeter cup of sack any place from here to the New World—another, I prithee,” and added, as Hal set it before him, “An I grow this partiality for sweet sack, Hal, methinks I shall needs have to borrow the belt of that merry knight, John Falstaff, whom I saw in a foolish piece at the playhouse when last I visited London, that city of evil stenches.”

Hal did not follow the jest, but in spite of this and his present ill-humour, he was forced to laugh with the spry little Spaniard who chuckled so mirthfully, and whose bright sparkling eyes were dancing as they glanced at him over the tankard’s rim.

At this moment Anny entered the kitchen and Dick, seeing her, raised his rumkin.

“To the health of Mother Swayle’s charge,” he said, smiling.

Gilbot looked up suddenly.

“Mother Swayle?” he said in surprise, and then added confidentially to Dick, “Terrible old woman—in liquor nearly all the day—oh, disgusting.” He finished his draught, smacked his lips, and wiped them with the back of his hand. “Ah, you’re right, sir, wonderful sack we sells,” he remarked.

The Spaniard suggested that he should take another and Gilbot cheerfully accepted.

“Master Blueneck is coming up the road, an it please you, sir,” said Sue, coming in from the courtyard.

“Ah, I thank thee, Mistress,” said the Spaniard courteously as he turned to help Anny lift an unusually heavy log on to the cracking fire, but Sue curtseyed and blushed as though he had looked at her with the same fire in his glance as lurked in the one which he bestowed on the younger girl, and her lip trembled as he turned away. All this which he saw and a great deal more which he thought he saw made Master Ezekiel French bite his honey-coloured beard and swear many oaths and curses against the slim white-handed little foreigner who chatted so gallantly with the wenches of the Ship.

Blueneck, entering at this moment, was surprised to see his master talking so earnestly with a chit of a child who as he rightly guessed had not more than seventeen years to her credit.

“The brig is due to start in five minutes if we mean to catch the tide, Captain,” he said.

“Ah, Master Blueneck,” the Spaniard turned affably, “and if we missed the tide what terrible mishap would that be?”

The sailor shuffled uneasily.

“You’re merry, Captain,” he said.

“Ay, Blueneck, I am, indeed, so merry that I cannot abear to have a man with a face as long as the yard-arm about me. Here, my young host,” he hailed Hal from the fireplace. “Give this dog some of thy famous sack, make him light-hearted as I,” and he turned once more to the two girls and Big French.

“Master French,” he said, “I trust to meet thee at the Victory this even, with thy three horses in the courtyard, and a trip to Tiptree in thy mind.”

French looked pleased and would have entered into business details with the Captain, but the other cut him short.

“Marry, Master French,” the Spaniard’s tone was reproachful, “you would not pester me with tales of rum kegs and silk bales when I have but three minutes to bid farewell to two fair beauties even though it be but for three days?”

“Three days?” Sue spoke in pleasure, French in surprise, and Blueneck in genuine alarm.

The Spaniard looked up.

“Yes,” he said carelessly, “methinks this eastern end of the Island more suited to my needs than the west. In three days’ time I shall return, and rest me at the sign of the Ship for a while.”

Big French looked at him in amazement and Blueneck swore under his breath at his master’s eccentricities.

Sue smiled.

“All will be ready for you, sir,” she said. “I thank you.”

The Spaniard bowed, sweeping the floor with his big hat. “Farewell, Mistresses,” he said gallantly as they curtseyed, rather abashed at his Spanish courtesy.

“And now Master French,” he continued, “if thou wilt accompany me to the wall we will discuss that little matter of a trip to Tiptree.”

French looked at the debonair little figure half-irritated by the underlying note of command in his voice, but on the other hand half charmed by an indescribable air of perfect freedom which seemed to be exhaled from him.

“I’m coming, Captain,” he said, and nodded to the girls before he turned to follow Black’erchief Dick, who with another bow marched out of the open door, Blueneck after him.

Sue went to the door and watched them going down the road; Big French, a handsome figure in his blue coat, strode beside the slight, gaudily clad little Spaniard whose head hardly reached a foot above the carter’s belt, while Blueneck trudged alone behind. “Ah,” said she, her eyes fixed on the small, almost insignificant figure in the distance, “what a gallant gentleman!”

Anny laughed.

“Maybe,” she said, “but I don’t hold with gentlefolk,” and she walked across the room to where Hal was adding up the yesterday’s reckonings.

“Hal,” she said as she sat down beside him, “I did not kiss thee last night when you bade me good-night.”

Hal kept his eyes fixed on the slate in front of him, but he ceased to take any account of the figures thereon.

“Hal,” said Anny again coaxingly. “Thou didst not kiss me when I said good-night to thee.”

The boy did not raise his eyes and the girl moved a little closer to him.

“Hal,” she said plaintively. Still he did not move. “Hal,” said Anny again. “O, very well,” she added, a catch in her voice, “if thou wilt not——” And she rose to her feet.

“What do you want, maid?” said Hal gruffly, albeit somewhat hastily.

Anny sat down again.

“I owe you a kiss, Hal,” she said softly, twisting her fingers together as they lay on her lap.

“Well?” Hal’s tone was still gruff.

“You owe me a kiss, Hal,” she said without looking at him.

“Well?” the boy drew crosses and rings round the side of the slate.

Anny sighed.

“You were adding the reckonings, Hal, and I want to pay mine,” she said.

“I’m sorry I doubted thee, Anny, but the Spaniard is so fine,” said Hal, a moment or two later, all debts having been squared.

Anny laughed happily.

“’Tis not you but Big French who should be afeared of the Spaniard,” she said, looking over toward Sue, who was still staring through the open door. As though aware that she was being spoken of the girl turned round.

“Anny, lass,” she called. “Come, I would talk to thee.”

Anny rose.

“Foolish one,” she whispered to Hal as her lips brushed his ear.

Hal watched her go lightly across the room and then returned to his reckoning much comforted, but he reflected as he worked that whether she had paid him back or not Anny Farren had certainly forgotten to kiss him on the night that Dick Delfazio, the Spaniard, first came to the Ship Inn.

Meanwhile, Sue and Anny stood together in the doorway deep in talk.

“But, Anny,” Sue was saying, as she held out the skirt of her gown for the other’s inspection, “think you ’twill serve another winter?”

Anny looked at it for a moment; then she displayed her own. “’Tis much better than mine, Mistress Sue,” she said.

“Oh! but you need not look so neat as I,” Sue spoke quickly and without thinking. But, seeing the other girl’s lip tremble, she put an arm round her slim shoulders.

“Nay, I did not mean to speak so,” she said kindly. “I was thinking but of myself; see, lass, when Master French next goes to Tiptree he shall bring me a new length of flannel from the market, and I will give thee this gown, for, truly, thine is very old.”

Anny looked up and smiled; the gift of one of Sue’s old gowns was an event for her.

“Thank thee kindly, mistress,” she said, as Sue shook out the folds of the faded purple homespun frock and tightened the lacing of the corsage. “’Tis not so bad,” she said.

Anny looked at it with pleasure and she laughed happily. “Nay,” she said, “it will suit me well, I thank you, mistress.”

Sue bent and kissed her.

“You’re a good wench, Anny,” she said, “in spite of yourself.”