We got here well nigh two hours ago, though we got a good meal and dried our clothes at a farmhouse."

"We got a meal, too, soon after we landed," Geoffrey said; "but we did not dry our clothes till we got to a little village. I did not ask its name. I am awfully sorry, Joe, about the _Susan_."

"It is a bad job, but it cannot be helped, Master Geoffrey. I owned a third of her, and two traders at Bricklesey own the other shares. Still I have no cause to grumble. I have laid by more than enough in the last four years to buy a share in another boat as good as she was. You see, a trader ain't like a smack. A trader's got only hull and sails, while a smack has got her nets beside, and they cost well nigh as much as the boat. Thankful enough we are that we have all escaped with our lives; and now I find you are safe my mind feels at rest over it."

"Do you think it will be calm enough to cross in the morning, Joe?"

"Like enough," the sailor replied; "a gale like this is like to blow itself out in twenty-four hours. It has been the worst I ever saw. It is not blowing now quite so hard as it did, and by the morning I reckon, though there may be a fresh wind, the gale will be over."

The number of travellers were far too great for the accommodation of the inn; and with the exception of two or three of the first arrivals all slept on some hay in one of the barns.

The next morning, although the wind was still strong, the fury of the gale had abated. The ferryman, however, said the water was so rough he must wait for a time before they crossed. But when Geoffrey offered him a reward to put their party on sh.o.r.e at once, he consented to do so, Joe Chambers and the two sailors a.s.sisting with the oars; and as the ferry-boat was large and strongly built, they crossed without further inconvenience than the wetting of their jackets.

Joe Chambers, who knew the town perfectly, at once took them to a place where they were able to hire a couple of horses, and on these rode to Maldon, some nine miles away. Here they procured other horses, and it was not long after midday when they arrived at Hedingham.

Mrs. Vickars held up her hands in astonishment at their shrunken garments; but her relief from the anxiety she had felt concerning what had befallen them during the gale was so great that she was unable to scold.

"We will tell you all about it, mother, afterwards," Geoffrey said, as he released himself from her embrace. "We have had a great adventure, and the _Susan_ has been wrecked. But this is not the most important matter. Father, has the earl started yet?"

"He was to have gone this morning, Geoffrey, but the floods are likely to be out, and the roads will be in such a state that I have no doubt he has put off his journey."

"It is important that we should see him at once, father. We have overheard some people plotting against the queen's life, and measures must be taken at once for her safety. We will run up and change our things if you will go with us to see him. If you are there he will see you whatever he is doing, while if we go alone there might be delay."

Without waiting for an answer the boys ran upstairs and quickly returned in fresh clothes. Mr. Vickars was waiting for them with his hat on.

"You are quite sure of what you are saying, Geoffrey?" he observed as they walked towards the castle. "Remember, that if it should turn out an error, you are likely to come to sore disgrace instead of receiving commendation for your interference. Every one has been talking of plots against the queen for some time, and you may well have mistaken the purport of what you have heard."

"There is no mistake, father, it is a real conspiracy, though who are those concerned in it I know not. Lionel and I are not likely to raise a false alarm about nothing, as you will say yourself when you hear the story I have to tell the earl."

They had by this time entered the gates of the castle. "The earl has just finished dinner," one of the attendants replied in answer to the question of Mr. Vickars.

"Will you tell him that I wish to see him on urgent business?"

In two or three minutes the servant returned and asked the clergyman to follow him. The earl received him in his private chamber, for the castle was full with guests.

"Well, dominie, what is it?" he asked. "You want some help, I will be bound, for somebody ill or in distress. I know pretty well by this time the meaning of your urgent business."

"It is nothing of that kind to-day," the clergyman replied; "it is, in fact, my sons who wish to see your lordship. I do not myself know the full purport of their story, save that it is something which touches the safety of the queen."

The earl's expression at once changed.

"Is that so, young sirs? This is a serious matter, you know; it is a grave thing to bring an accusation against anyone in matters touching the state."

"I am aware that it is, my lord, and a.s.suredly my brother and I would not lightly meddle with such matters; but I think that you will say this is a business that should be attended to. It happened thus, sir."

He then briefly told how, that being out in a ketch that traded from Bricklesey, they were caught in the gale; that the vessel was driven on the sands, and they were cast ash.o.r.e on a mast.

He then related the inhospitable reception they had met with. "It seemed strange to us, sir, and contrary to nature, that anyone should refuse to allow two shipwrecked lads to enter the house for shelter on such a day; and it seemed well-nigh impossible that his tale of the place being too full to hold us could be true. However, we started to walk. On our way we met four hors.e.m.e.n going towards the house, closely m.u.f.fled up in cloaks."

"There was nothing very strange in that," the earl observed, "in such weather as we had yesterday."

"Nothing at all, sir; we should not have given the matter one thought had it not been that the four men were very well mounted, and, apparently, gentlemen; and it was strange that such should have business in an out-of-the-way house in Foulness Island. A little further we met three men on foot. They were also wrapped up in cloaks; but they wore high riding-boots, and had probably left their horses on the other side of the ferry so as not to attract attention. A short time afterwards we met two more hors.e.m.e.n, one of whom asked us if he was going right for the house we had been at. As he was speaking a gust of wind blew off his hat. I fetched it and gave it to him, and as he stooped to put it on I saw that a tonsure was shaven on the top of his head. The matter had already seemed strange to us; but the fact that one of this number of men, all going to a lonely house, was a priest in disguise, seemed so suspicious that my brother and myself determined to try and get to the bottom of it."

Geoffrey then related how they had gone back to the house and effected an entrance into the loft extending over it; how he had through the cracks in the boards seen a party of men gathered in one of the lower rooms, and then repeated word for word the sc.r.a.ps of conversation that he had overheard.

The earl had listened with an expression of amused doubt to the early portion of the narrative; but when Geoffrey came to the part where accident had shown to him that one of these men proceeding towards this house was a disguised priest, his face became serious, and he listened with deep attention to the rest of the narrative.

"Faith," he said, "this is a serious matter, and you have done right well in following up your suspicions, and in risking your lives, for they would a.s.suredly have killed you had they discovered you. Mr.

Vickars, your sons must ride with me to London at once. The matter is too grave for a moment's delay. I must lay it before Burleigh at once.

A day's delay might be fatal."

He rang a bell standing on the table. As soon as an attendant answered it he said, "Order three horses to be saddled at once; I must ride to London with these young gentlemen without delay. Order Parsons and Nichols to be ready in half an hour to set out with us. Have you had food, young sirs? for it seems you came hither directly you arrived."

Finding that the boys had eaten nothing since they had left Maldon, he ordered food to be brought them, and begged them eat it while he explained to the countess and guests that sudden business that could not be delayed called him away to London. Half an hour later he started with the boys, the two servants following behind. Late that evening they arrived in London. It was too late to call on Lord Burleigh that night; but early the next morning the earl took the boys with him to the house of the great statesman. Leaving them in the ante-chamber he went in to the inner apartment, where the minister was at breakfast.

Ten minutes later he came out, and called the boys in.

"The Earl of Oxford has told me your story," Lord Burleigh said. "Tell it me again, and omit nothing; for things that seem small are often of consequence in a matter like this."

Geoffrey again repeated his story, giving full details of all that had taken place from the time of their first reaching the house.

Lord Burleigh then questioned him closely as to whether they had seen any of the faces of the men, and would recognise them again.

"I saw none from my spying-place above, my lord," Geoffrey said. "I could see only the tops of their heads, and most of them still kept their hats on; nor did we see them as they pa.s.sed, with the exception only of the man I supposed to be a priest. His face I saw plainly. It was smooth shaven; his complexion was dark, his eyebrows were thin and straight, his face narrow. I should take him for a foreigner--either a Spaniard or Italian."

Lord Burleigh made a note of this description.

"Thanks, young sirs," he said. "I shall, of course, take measures to prevent this plot being carried out, and shall inform her majesty how bravely you both risked your lives to discover this conspiracy against her person. The Earl of Oxford informs me that you are pages of his cousin, Captain Francis Vere, a very brave and valiant gentleman; and that you bore your part bravely in the siege of Sluys, but are at present at home to rest after your labours there, and have permission of Captain Vere to take part in any trouble that may arise here owing to the action of the Spaniards. I have now no further occasion for your services, and you can return with the earl to Hedingham, but your attendance in London will be needed when we lay hands upon these conspirators."

The same day they rode back to Hedingham, but ten days later were again summoned to London. The queen had the day before journeyed to Windsor.

Half an hour before she arrived at the wood near Datchet a strong party of her guard had suddenly surrounded it, and had found twelve armed men lurking there. These had been arrested and lodged in the Tower. Three of them were foreigners, the rest members of Catholic families known to be favourable to the Spanish cause. Their trial was conducted privately, as it was deemed advisable that as little should be made as possible of this and other similar plots against the queen's life that were discovered about this time.

Geoffrey and Lionel gave their evidence before the council. As the only man they could have identified was not of the party captured, their evidence only went to show the motive of this gathering in the wood near Datchet. The prisoners stoutly maintained that Geoffrey had misunderstood the conversation he had partly overheard, and that their design was simply to make the queen a prisoner and force her to abdicate. Three of the prisoners, who had before been banished from the country and who had secretly returned, were sentenced to death; two of the others to imprisonment for a long term of years, the rest to banishment from England.

After the trial was over Lord Burleigh sent for the boys, and gave them a very gracious message in the queen's name, together with two rings in token of her majesty's grat.i.tude. Highly delighted with these honours they returned to Hedingham, and devoted themselves even more a.s.siduously than before to exercises in arms, in order that they might some day prove themselves valiant soldiers of the queen.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SPANISH ARMADA.

The struggle that was at hand between Spain and England had long been foreseen as inevitable. The one power was the champion of Roman Catholicism, the other of Protestantism; and yet, although so much hung upon the result of the encounter, and all Europe looked on with the most intense interest, both parties entered upon the struggle without allies, and this entirely from the personal fault of the sovereigns of the two nations.

Queen Elizabeth, by her constant intrigues, her underhand dealings with France and Spain, her grasping policy in the Netherlands, her meanness and parsimony, and the fact that she was ready at any moment to sacrifice the Netherlands to her own policy, had wholly alienated the people of the Low Country; for while their own efforts for defence were paralysed by the constant interference of Elizabeth, no benefit was obtained from the English army, whose orders were to stand always on the defensive--the queen's only anxiety appearing to be to keep her grasp upon the towns that had been handed over to her as the price of her alliance.

Her own counsellors were driven to their wits' end by her constant changes of purpose. Her troops were starving and in rags from her parsimony, the fleet lay dismantled and useless from want of funds, and except such arming and drilling as took place at the expense of the n.o.bles, counties, and cities, no preparation whatever was made to meet the coming storm. Upon the other hand, Philip of Spain, who might have been at the head of a great Catholic league against England, had isolated himself by his personal ambitions, Had he declared himself ready, in the event of his conquest of England, to place James of Scotland upon the throne, he would have had Scotland with him, together with the Catholics of England, still a powerful and important body.

France, too, would have joined him, and the combination against Elizabeth and the Protestants of England would have been well-nigh irresistible. But this he could not bring himself to do. His dream was the annexation of England to Spain; and smarting as the English Catholics were under the execution of Mary of Scotland, their English spirit revolted against the idea of the rule of Spain, and the great Catholic n.o.bles hastened, when the moment of danger arrived, to join in the defence of their country, while Scotland, seeing no advantage to be gained in the struggle, stood sullenly aloof, and France gave no aid to a project which was to result, if successful, in the aggrandizement of her already dangerously formidable neighbour.