Sweet Mace: A Sussex Legend of the Iron Times

“Of course,” said the founder. “Mace, my child.”

“Yes,” said Gil, quietly, “go away, Mace; Janet will stay and watch by this gentleman’s side.”

Mace glanced at him wonderingly, and Janet coloured with pleasure as, frowning slightly, Sir Mark closed his eyes, and the girl half drew the blind, while, headed by the founder, after removing all traces of the conflict, Gilbert Carr and Mace went softly out, and closed the door.

“Why do you look at me like that?” said Mace, as they stood alone. “Gil, do you doubt me?”

“Doubt you?” he said softly as he bent down and kissed her white forehead. “No, I could not, for you are not as other women are. I did not wish you, though, to be ’tendant to this spark from the Court, for such he seems to be. Nay, Mace, I’ve no jealousy in me. But there is your pike,” he added, pointing to the fish, a great fellow four feet long, which lay on the red bricks at their feet. “Here is your father, and he’ll tell us how the quarrel rose.”

“Quarrel! it was not worth calling a quarrel,” cried the founder, shortly. “It seems that some meddlesome fool has been telling them in London of my works, and this gentleman has been sent down to inspect the place. He vexed me, and said something about the King, which made me rap out an oath. He drew: I drew.”

“And our visitor went down,” said Gil Carr, smiling. “Well, Master Cobbe, there’s not much harm done.”

“But I shall have to send over to the Moat, Gil, and tell Sir Thomas; he was here a piece back.”

“Nay,” said Gil, “ill news flies apace, there is no need to hasten it. Leave it to the gentleman himself.”

“Perhaps you are right,” returned the founder. “Of course he will not be fit to leave for a day or two. Mace, child, get the south chamber ready for our guest: let’s try and make up for the ill that we have done.”

Gilbert Carr half-closed his eyes and stood silent till Mace left the open hall, where they were standing, to prepare the chamber for the wounded man, when he replied to the founder’s remark: —

“It depends so upon the man.”

“Eh? How?”

“Well, if you had a scratch or pin-thrust like that you would go and see to the grinding of your last batch of powder. If I had it, I should.”

“Well?” said the founder.

“I should tie it up – tightly,” replied Gil, drily. “Your guest there will make a month’s illness of it for the sake of being petted by the women and nursed.”

“That’s a pretty jealous kind of remark, Captain Gil,” said the founder sharply. “I noticed how you took me up short when I bade Mace stop in the room with the poor young man. Come down here, I want to talk to you. We may as well say it now as at any other time. Let’s walk down to the empty furnace. No one will heed us there.”

“With all my heart,” said Gil, and, with a cloud gathering on his brow, he walked after the founder, along by the side of the rushing water, past the mill-wheel, and down to a good-sized stone building, beside which was a great pile of charcoal.

“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.”