Under Drakes Flag | Page 5

is the schoolmaster here."
"Will he consent, think you, to your taking to a seafaring life?"
"Methinks he will, sir. He knows that my heart is set upon it, for he
hath often said if I loved my lessons with one-tenth of the love I bear
for the sea, I should make a good scholar, and be a credit to him."
"I will not forget you, lad. Trust me, and when you hear of my return,
fail not to send a reminder, and to claim a place in my next adventure."
Ned Hearne, delighted at the assurance, ran off at full speed to the
cottage where his father resided, at the end of the village. The dominie,
who was an old man, wore the huge tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles of
the time.
"Wet again," he said, as his son burst into the room in which he was

sitting, studying a Greek tome. "Truly thou earnest the name of which
thou art so proud, Otter, hardly. What tempted thee to go into the water,
on a day like this?"
Ned briefly explained what had taken place. The story was no unusual
one, for this was the third time that he had swum out to vessels on the
rocks between Westport and Plymouth. Then he related to his father
how Captain Francis Drake had spoken to him, and praised him, and
how he had promised that, on his next trip to the West Indies, he would
take him with him.
"I would not have you count too much upon that," the dominie said,
dryly. "It is like, indeed, that he may never come back from this
hare-brain adventure; and if he brings home his skin safe, he will,
methinks, have had enough of burning in the sun, and fighting the
Spaniards."
"But hath he not already made two or three voyages thither, Father?"
the boy asked.
"That is true enough," said his father; "but from what I gather, these
were mere trips to spy out the land. This affair on which he starts now
will be, I wot, a very different matter."
"How is it, Father," the boy said on the following morning, resuming
the conversation from the point which they were at when he went up to
change his wet clothes, the day before, "that when England is at peace
with Spain, our sailors and the Spanish do fight bloodily, in the West
Indies?"
"That, my son, is a point upon which the Roman law telleth us nothing.
I have, in my shelves, some very learned treatises on war; but in none
do I find mention of a state of things in which two powers, at peace at
home, do fight desperately at the extreme end of the earth."
"But, Father, do you think it not lawful to kill the Spaniard, and to take
the treasures which he robbeth from the poor heathen of the West?"

"I know not about lawful, my son, but I see no warrant whatsoever for
it; and as for heathen, indeed, it appears to me that the attacks upon him
do touch, very closely, upon piracy upon the high seas. However, as the
country in general appeareth to approve of it, and as it is said that the
queen's most gracious majesty doth gladly hear of the beating of the
Spaniards, in those seas, it becometh not me to question the rights of
the case."
"At any rate, Father, you would not object when the time comes for me
to sail with Mr. Francis Drake?"
"No, my boy; thou hast never shown any aptitude whatever for learning.
Thou canst read and write, but beyond that thy knowledge runneth not.
Your mind seems to be set on the water, and when you are not in it you
are on it. Therefore it appears, to me, to be flying in the face of
Providence to try to keep you on shore. Had your poor mother lived, it
would have been a different thing. Her mind was set upon your
becoming a clerk; but there, one might as well try to make a silk purse
from the ear of a sow. But I tell you again, count not too much upon
this promise. It may be years before Mr. Francis Drake may be in a
position to keep it."
Had Ned Hearne watched for Captain Drake's second voyage, he would,
indeed, as his father had said, have waited long. Three days after the
conversation, however, a horseman from Plymouth rode into the little
village, and inquired for the house of Master Hearne. Being directed
thither, he rode up in haste to the gate.
"Here is a letter!" he cried, "for the son of the schoolmaster, who goes
by the name of the Otter."
"I am he," Ned cried. "What is it, and