inwardly resolving that on the very next day he would go up to Modbury Manor and apply to his lordship's bailiff, entreating him to give him work, either on the farm or else in the mews where the hawks were kept. And he had little doubt that when once he had got promise of employment there would be no possible opposition from his father.

This thought of his father reminded him that he had not yet begun to gather the herbs for which he had been sent out, so he went on over the fields until he came to the fir plantation in Modbury Park, and there in a quiet hollow he began to fill his wallet with such roots and berries as the barber-surgeon had bidden him bring home.

He had walked round by the lake, and was unearthing the root of a rare herb which he knew that his father would set great store by, when, without the warning of any previous sound or movement he felt himself suddenly seized from behind and held firmly by his leather belt.

Now, although the hand which held him was a very tiny one, yet it gripped him with surprising tenacity, and the suddenness of the assault was such that the lad, knowing that he was a trespasser on private ground, was greatly alarmed. He thought at once of my lord's gamekeeper, and he dreaded the consequences. He struggled to wrench himself away, and turned to confront his assailant. Instead of the man that he had expected, he beheld a little maid whose large blue eyes regarded him with an expression of ferocity that would have been terrible if it had not been merely assumed. She wore a lace-trimmed frock of golden-brown velvet that came down nearly to her toes. There was a crimson silk sash about her waist and a milk-white ruffle round her neck, and her cheeks were rosy with glowing health. She was beautiful to behold. But Tim thought nothing of her beauty; he was only astonished that so dainty a little gentlewoman, the granddaughter of a noble baron as he knew her to be, should display such boldness as to lay hands upon him, the son of a poor barber. He looked at her in amazement.

"Certes, Mistress Oglander," said he in his confusion, "how you did startle me! I heard not your approach."

"That is scarcely to be believed," quoth she, still gripping his belt, "for we have been firing our guns into your quarter this half-hour past!" Then tugging at him with renewed energy, she added, "You are now fairly conquered and our lawful prize of war."

"Nay, Mistress Oglander," stammered Timothy, "I know not what you mean! I am but gathering a few poor herbs for my father, Master Trollope, the barber-surgeon of Plymouth, and I beg you to release me."

Mistress Oglander looked strangely incredulous, and for a moment she relaxed her hold of him. She glanced round as though in search of someone whom she expected to see among the trees at the edge of the lake.

"I care not whose son you may be," said she. "In real truth you are no man's son; nor, so please you, am I Drusilla Oglander; for you are a Spanish treasure-ship that I have captured on the high seas, while I am the good ship Prudence of Falmouth, who now intendeth to take you as my prize to England."

Timothy seemed to apprehend her purpose, for he calmly yielded himself to her humour.

"An that be the way of it all," quoth he, "then am I well content. But I do pray that England doth lie at no great distance from this spot, for I must get home with my bag of herbs for the which my father is impatiently waiting."

"'Tis but a little way beyond the beeches yonder," explained Drusilla, indicating three tall trees that grew in the midst of a shrubbery at the far end of the little lake. "'Twill take but a few moments to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and then we are there."

She drew him onward for some yards, when suddenly he stopped. She glanced at him in quick alarm.

"Nay," she cried, "you must not sink! You are to be refitted when we reach port, and then, you know, you will be made into an English ship."

But Timothy still hesitated, and even made a movement as if to free himself and run away.

"Why are you sinking?" questioned little Drusilla, to whom his movements seemed to imply that he had been seriously damaged in the late battle. "It cannot be that the shots I fired struck you below the water!"

"'Tis my heart that sinketh," returned Tim. "Prithee, who and what are the men I see lurking under yonder trees?"

Drusilla smiled.

"The one sitting down with his back to the railings," said she, "is the Santa Barbara galleon—a poor hopeless wreck. The other—well, I scarce know what he is at this moment, for he hath been so many things this morning that 'tis hard to remember. But I think he was the mule-train the last time—the mule-train that Drake captured near to Nombre de Dios. Gilbert was Captain Drake. Gilbert doth always like to be Captain Drake whenever 'tis possible, and will never consent to be a Spaniard, unless it be King Philip himself or else the great Marquis of Santa Cruz."

"Master Gilbert can scarce be blamed for his choice," remarked Tim. And, understanding from what the girl had said that there was no reason for the fear that had come over him, he meekly suffered himself to be taken into port in the character of a captive treasure-ship.

CHAPTER II.

THE YOUNG HEIR OF MODBURY.

"I CAN scarce agree with you there," remarked the young man whom Drusilla had described as a poor helpless wreck. He was a thin, sallow-faced, sad-looking individual, with lank black hair, hollow cheeks, and weary, lack-lustre eyes. His ruff was limp and frayed at the edge, and his long scraggy neck rose out of it like the stump of a mushroom that had difficulty in supporting the large head that surmounted it. His sombre black cloth doublet hung loose about his body, and its elbows were worn threadbare. One of his long bony fingers was thrust between the closed leaves of a little book that he held lovingly in his hand. His whole appearance suggested that his habit of life was that of a student, and his discourse certainly did not give the lie to his appearance.

"I can scarce agree with you, Sir Richard," said he in a thin, pipy voice. "Your Ovid is indeed a prince among poets, but in my own poor opinion Virgil is the greater of the two, inasmuch as the epic is greater than the lyric."

"Nay, but I care not to dispute such deep and learned matters with you, Master Pym," returned the other with a yawn that betrayed his weariness of the student's argument. "You are a scholar who knoweth all these things as I do know the ropes of a ship, while I am but a simple seaman, devoid of learning, who hath scarce opened a book since I was a mere stripling. Talk to me of travel if you like, or of Her Majesty's temper, and I will give ear to you, but to books and poets I cry avast!" He shifted his position on the fallen tree upon which he was sitting, and turned his clear gray eyes in the direction of the plantation towards which, a few minutes before, Drusilla had sailed off in quest of adventure. "Ah!" he cried, observing the girl approaching with Timothy Trollope at her heels. "Whom have we here—a prisoner of war? Why, I'll be sworn 'tis the self-same young jackanapes that leapt into Sutton Pool yester-morn to rescue the drunken fisherman that fell in! Dost know the name of him, Master Pym?"

The scholar drew the wide brim of his hat over his brow to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun.

"Ay," he said after a long pause, "I know him. 'Tis one of Barber Trollope's brood—a wild, thoughtless