The Settlers | Page 5

friends, and will give you sound advice on
the subject. I would wish you to set out forthwith for Plymouth, and to
place the whole matter before him. Tell him that I will expend all my
means towards fitting out a ship to send to Virginia with trustworthy
persons to search for your father. It may be, though, for the love
Captain Layton bore him, that he will afford further means if necessary
for the purpose.'"
"That will I right gladly," exclaimed the captain, starting up, and taking
three or four paces between the chairs in which the young brothers
were sitting--first looking at one and then at the other; "you two are
Audleys--I recognise your father's features in both your countenances.
There are few men whose memory I hold in greater love or esteem, and
I will not say that to recover him I would hazard half my fortune, for
the whole of it I would gladly give to bring him back, and old as I am,

will sail forth myself in command of a ship to Virginia should a
younger man of sufficient experience be wanting. You, young sir, I
perceive by your dress and looks, have not been to sea; or you would be
the proper person to sail in search of the missing one."
"No, sir," answered Vaughan, "but I have been for some time a student
at Cambridge, where I have diligently studied mathematics, and being
well acquainted with the mode by which ships are navigated, although I
am ignorant of the duties of a seaman, I might, with the aid of a sailing
master, be able without difficulty to reach the country of which Batten
told us. Gilbert has already made two voyages to the Thames, and one
as far as the Firth of Forth, so that he is not altogether ignorant of sea
affairs, and lacks not willingness for the purpose."
"So I should judge," observed the captain, casting an approving look at
Gilbert; "I like your spirit, young man; and you may trust to me that I
will do all I can to forward your views. Had my son Roger been at
home, the matter might quickly have been arranged; but he has long
been gone on a voyage to the East Indies with Sir Edward
Michaelbourn, on board the Tiger, a stout ship, in which Captain John
Davis sailed as pilot. There went also a pinnace named the Tiger's
Whelp. I would the good ship were back again, for Roger is my only
son, and his sister Cicely begins to fret about him."
"Gladly would I serve under your son, should he before long return and
be willing to sail for Virginia," replied Vaughan.
"Would you be as willing to serve under me, young sir?" asked the
captain, glancing from under his shaggy eyebrows at Vaughan; "for
verily, should not Roger soon come back, I should be greatly inclined
to fit out a stout ship, and take Cicely on board and all my household
goods, and to settle down in the New World. Cicely has her brother's
spirit, and will be well pleased to engage in such a venture; as I will
promise her to leave directions for Roger to join us should he return
after we have sailed."
"I could desire nothing better, Captain Layton," answered the young
man; "our mother will indeed rejoice to hear that you have been so

ready to comply with her request. What you propose far surpasses her
expectations."
Captain Amyas Layton had been a man of action all his life, and age
had not quenched his ardour. While pacing up and down, his thoughts
were rapidly at work; every now and then he addressed his young
guests, evidently turning over in his mind the various plans which
suggested themselves.
"My old shipmate Captain George Weymouth is now in England," he
said, "I will write to learn his opinion. I have another friend, Captain
Bartholomew Gosnell. I know not if he has again sailed since his last
voyage to America; if not, I will find him out. He will, to a certainty,
have useful information to give us."
Thus the captain ran over the names of various brave commanders, who
had at different times visited the shores of North America. He counted
much also, he said, on Captain John Davis, who had sailed along those
coasts; though he had gained his chief renown in the northern seas,
amid the ice-mountains which float there throughout the year--his name
having been given to those straits through which he passed into that
region of cold. Vaughan and Gilbert had been listening attentively to all
he said, desiring to report the same to their mother and Lettice, when
the sound of a horse's hoofs were heard in the paved yard by