George Fenn - Sweet Mace - A Sussex Legend of the Iron Times

“Now, Gil Carr,” said the founder, seating himself on the ledge of an open window, “I’m not going to quarrel.”

“That you are not,” said the other, smiling frankly; “and if you did you are not going to fight, for I won’t draw. One wounded man is enough for one day.”

“Tut – tut – yes,” cried the founder. “But now look here, Captain Gil – ”

“Suppose we drop the captain, and let it be plain Gil again, as it has been these many years. Master Cobbe, we are very old friends.”

“Yes, yes, of course, Gil, so we are,” said the founder, looking annoyed and puzzled. “But now, look here, tell me why did you interfere when I was going to tell my child to sit in the room with that injured gentleman. Come now, be frank.”

“I will,” said Gil, quietly. “It was because I did not think it seemly for her to stay and tend a man whose eyes had just openly bespoken admiration, and I thought that Janet would do as well.”

“Like your insolence,” cried the choleric old man.

“Gently, Master Cobbe,” said the other smiling; “too much powder again.”

“Confound it, yes,” he cried, calming down, but only to grow wroth the next moment, as he saw the smile upon his companion’s face. “You are laughing at me, Gil; and now, hark ye here, I think it is quite time we came to a proper understanding.”

“About Mace?” said Gil, quietly.

“Yes, about my child,” said the founder.

“I think so, too,” said Gil, calmly, but with the bronze hue of his cheek becoming a little more deeply tinted.

“Oh! you do,” said the founder, with a peculiar hesitancy, now it had come to the point, and an aspect of being slightly in awe of the other and his calm, firm way – the peculiar quiet assertion of one born to and accustomed to command.

“I do,” said Gil, gazing him full in the eyes; “and I am glad that you have opened a subject I wanted to discuss.”

“Then it is soon done,” said the founder; “and look here, Gil, my dear lad, after the talk is over, we go back to our old positions as good friends, and it is to be as if we had never spoken.”

“Have no fear,” said Gil, smiling; “as I told you, we shall not quarrel.”

“Well, then, look here,” said the founder, making a plunge at once into the subject. “Gil Carr, you are growing too intimate with my child.”

“Indeed!” said Gil, raising his eyebrows. “Let me see, Master Cobbe: it is sixteen years since Wat Kilby brought me, a delicate boy of twelve, low from an attack of a fever caught in the Western Isles, and you and your good wife nursed me into strength.”

“Yes, yes, quite true,” said the founder, hastily. “Poor Rachel! poor Rachel!” he muttered, and his face clouded.

“If ever woman was meet for the kingdom of heaven when she died it was Mace’s mother – my second mother!” said Gil, gravely.

“Amen to that!” said the founder. “Thank you, Gil – thank you – God bless you for those words,” he continued, with his voice trembling; and he seized and wrung the young man’s hand, which warmly pressed his in return.

“Mace was a child of four then, Master Cobbe,” said Gil, “and we have been like brother and sister ever since.”

“Yes, yes, quite true,” said the founder.

“Then why do you say that I am growing too intimate with your child?”

“Because,” said the founder, laying his hand upon the young man’s arm, “you are growing now less like brother and sister, and it is time it was stopped.”

“Why?” said Gil, gravely.

“Because, Gil Carr, the intimacy of two people like you might lead to feelings that end in marriage, and that could never be.”

“I do not see why not,” said Gil, quietly.

“No,” said the founder, “but I do! And now listen. I like you, Gil, and I’m going to give you a bit of advice, both about this matter and your ship, for we are old friends, and I should not like you and yours to come to harm.”

“Friends in home matters, but in business you always drove the hardest bargains with me that you could; and now you talk of locking Mace away.”

“Friends enough, all the same, my lad; and as to locking up my daughter from you, as you term it, if I in the future bid her always keep her room when you are home from sea and come up here, shall I not do right? Would you have me bring her out to listen to the gallant words of every buccaneering captain who comes to my place, swaggering and swearing and drinking, till he wants a man on each side to see him safe away, lest he get into the mill-race or the dam. Nay, Captain Gil Carr – Culverin Carr, if you like! – times are altered now, for Mace is a woman grown, and a girl no longer. So in the future I’ll trade with you and be the best of friends, but there we’ll stop.”

“Now, Master Cobbe,” said Gil, with a quiet, grave smile, “when did you see me overcome by strong waters, or swaggering, or using oaths? Fie! you make me worse than I am.”

Jeremiah Cobbe chuckled, and laid his finger good-humouredly upon the young man’s breast.

“It will not do, Gil lad, so we need not argue. You are as good as most men; but see here, I have Mace’s future welfare to provide for, and, above all, her happiness. I’ve been weak and neglectful, perhaps, so far, but now I’m going to be hard as the iron in those guns. There’s no harm done as yet, so let us stop in time, for we both wish the poor girl to be happy.”

“No harm?” said Gil.

“No: so we’ll stop at once. Think you I’m going to let a man like you fool the girl with fine words? You journey here, and you journey there, and you see saucy Frenchwomen, bright-eyed Spaniards, and dark-haired Portingallo dames, and those of Italy, and no one knows where beside. Court them, my lad, and marry as many of them as you like. May be you have now a wife in every port, but you must e’en leave my little white moth alone. Let her flitter and flutter about and be satisfied with the soft light of the moon and stars; I don’t want her pretty wings singed in the fierce light of a thoughtless man’s love.”

“Amen!” said Gil, softly.

“Amen, eh? Why, Gil, you are a fine fellow to give forth such a churchman’s word as that so glibly and so pat. Master Peasegood would look fierce enough if he heard such an ungodly follower of Belial as you beginning to preach.”

“In the name of all that’s strange, Master Cobbe, what does this mean?” exclaimed Gil. “I have been free of your house all these years, and now this sudden change has come over you, and you treat me thus scurvily. In the name of all the saints, speak out. What have I done?”

“Been hooked by Father Bonchurch, seemingly, and gone over to see the Scarlet Lady on the Seven Hills, to hear you swearing by the saints.”

“It is enough to make a man swear by anything, Master Cobbe, to meet with such treatment. Come, speak out; how have I affronted you?”

“Well, if you will know, Master Gil, I looked out across the Pool some little time back, and I saw a certain young man out there in my boat fishing. All at once he thrust his hand into a bucket of water, and seized a feckless gudgeon, which he deftly hooked, and then threw overboard for the pike to seize. And, as I looked, I saw a little hand taken and kissed, and I knew then that one Captain Culverin had hooked a second gudgeon as well, and that he might play with her for a time, as he watched her helpless struggles in his hot hands, and then he might throw her overboard too. Then the scales fell from my eyes, and I saw that I had been a fool – one who had been so wrapped-up in his cannon-making that he had forgotten to watch what went on in his own house. Gilbert Carr, you have ceased to be a brother to my child, and have made hot love to her. Come, confess.”