Then suddenly there was a rude crashing through the branches, the song stopped, and the sound of blows was mingled with oaths spoken in the well-known voice of her head keeper. "Wicks!" she cried. "Stop! What is it? Come here!"

Wicks, a big, burly fellow, came out of the bushes holding by the neck of his smock a little boy, ten years old,—the age of her own Mortimer. The child blinked and swallowed hard, for he had had a bad beating, but he did not whimper nor shed a tear.

"What is the matter, Wicks?" Lady Eleanor demanded. "How came he here? Who is he?"

"Please, m'lady, 'tis yon lad from the tavern,—the little jackanapes. 'Tis the second time he'm come. I catched sight o' he once before."

"You mean Prettyman's boy,—Prettyman of the 'Golden Hind'?"

"No'm, he'm nobody's boy. But Martin leaves him bide there. And to think o' he coming here to steal."

Lady Eleanor interrupted, turning to the boy, "Tell me how you came here."

"Please, your ladyship," he answered soberly, and his eyes looked straight into hers, "through the iron rods of the gate. They sit so wide apart."

A smile peeped from Lady Eleanors's eyes. "You are a tiny bit of a lad, aren't you? My Mortimer's age, I take it, but much smaller. Tell me, why did you climb through?"

At that he lowered his eyes and was silent. Wicks answered for him.

"They'm all the same, please, m'lady. 'Tis the rabbits."

Lady Eleanor shook her head. "No, Wicks. Go. Leave him with me."

Wicks reluctantly let go his hold, and she put a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. Again he looked straight into her eyes. "What is your name?" she asked.

"Hugh, please, your lady, Hugh of the 'Golden Hind.' "

"Was it you whom I heard singing?" He flushed for answer, and she went on gently. "Now tell me why you came into my park?"

"It's the fairies, please, your lady."

"Oh, and so you find fairies in my park and sing to them?"

"Not—not yet. But this is their kind of place. I hoped they would be here. And so I made the song to call them."

"And that is all you came for?" He nodded. "Well, do you know," she admitted softly, "this is something I have always wondered about myself. And so you may come here as often as you like on one condition,—that is, if you ever do see fairies you will come and tell me. Will you?"

Hugh looked into her smiling eyes, and overcome with shyness and pleasure murmured his thanks.

He went back to the tavern, to his so-called home, with a big new happiness in his heart. He thought it was because he could go to find the fairies without any fear of the cruel Wicks, but it was also because he had found a friend who understood. His life at the tavern was always very interesting, but it was lonely. He was really nobody's child. No one knew who his father or mother was, though people supposed his father was a sailor gone away with Hawkins out across the seas to the New World, for it was just at that time that a basket with a baby boy in it, labeled Hugh, had been left on the tavern steps, and Goody Prettyman had taken him in, and had let him stay there ever since. He was useful, and no trouble to anyone. He sat for hours in the taproom listening to the sailor's talk. For the "Golden Hind" was near the wharves where ships came in at Plymouth. Wonderful times of excitement those were, when the little ships sailed out through the sunset into the Great Unknown, and more exciting still when they came back, each one with tales more marvelous than the last of the New World they had seen. They told of Spanish ships deep-laden with gold and silver, captured for the glory of England and good Queen Bess; of dark-skinned people with strange ways, who feasted on golden grain and roots taken from the earth; of shores piled up with pearls like pebbles, and with the very sands of gold.

Of course Hugh was going to sea himself as soon as he was old enough. Meanwhile, he climbed daily to the headland and watched the ships come and go on their voyages of mystery. The best of them all was naturally the Golden Hind, Captain Drake. No one had done such wonders as Drake of Plymouth. And now he was gone,—Hugh had seen him sail away,—out into a new ocean, the Pacific, where no Englishman had ever been. Word had come that he was lost, but Hugh and Plymouth knew better and waited for his return.

This is a British warship of the time of Queen Elizabeth

So, thanks to the coming and going of the ships and the talk of the sailors, the days were never dull for Hugh. Though it was a coarse, rough life, somehow the coarseness left no mark upon him, for his mind was too much taken up with wondering about magic and mystery and high adventure. And it was while waiting for the day of his own big adventure when he should be old enough to put out to sea, that he had made a little adventure for himself by stealing through the dusk and dangers of the great park to watch for the fairies.

Now his hopes of success, quickened by Lady Eleanor's interest, were very strong, and he kept nightly watch. And one morning as Lady Eleanor and Mortimer came down the steps of the great house, they were met by an excited boy. "I've come to tell you," he cried,—then at the sight of Mortimer hesitated and stopped, but Lady Eleanor held out a welcoming hand. "It's Hugh, Mortimer," she said. "What is it, Hugh?"

"Please, please, your lady," he stammered, "I've seen them!"

"What, no! The fairies?"

"I came last night in the dark," he said, "and very soon they began to dance. Oh, but it was pretty, and I guess I must have watched all night, for now it's morning."

Lady Eleanor smiled, but Mortimer spoke in big-boy fashion. "Fairies! Pooh! Who believes in them? There's no such thing."

But his mother interposed, even before she saw Hugh's crestfallen look.

"How do you know there are not? Who would have believed there were oceans and lands and people in the West if Frobisher and our own Drake hadn't gone and found them and told us about them?"

"Yes," Hugh affirmed, "and stranger things than fairies happen there."

"What?" Mortimer challenged him.

"Why, why, seashores made of gold, and men who pour smoke out of their mouths but don't burn up, and a fountain where you drink and you'll be made young forever."

"Who told you?" demanded Mortimer.

"Why, all the sailors. Everyone tells about them."

Mortimer's only response was an indirect one. "I say, mother, why can't he stay and play with me?"

Lady Eleanor looked a moment into Hugh's honest face. "He may, whenever he will. Should you like to, Hugh?"

After that the boys were constantly together. The park was an enchanted place to Hugh, and Hugh's strange acquaintances and information were full of interest to Mortimer. One day he begged Hugh to take him to the wharves to hear the sailors talk, and Hugh gladly did so. They found Simms, and old friend of Hugh's, a veteran of many voyages and a former seaman of Drake's, now too stiff and too old to navigate.

"Tell him about it," begged Hugh, as master of ceremonies. "He's never properly heard about things, only what I tell him."

"Eh? Bless my soul!" said the old sea dog. "And what kind of story do you like best, young master?"

"Oh, about gold and catching the Spanish ships."

"Yes, but tell him, too, about the new ocean," Hugh interrupted, "and Drake's climbing up in the tree to see it, you know. Always there's something more out beyond, isn't there? New oceans and new worlds always on ahead?"

"Sure, that's the spirit," said Simms. " 'Twon't be long before you'm at it, eh, Hugh? They'm as has things always beckoning 'em, they'm the ones who goes. But, if it's gold, you want, my master,"—he turned to Mortimer, "then listen"; and he told yarn after yarn of the Spanish Main, of Panama and its mule-trains loaded with gold, and of Drake capturing great shiploads all for the glory of England. "I want to go and do it with him," said Mortimer.

"Aye, marry, 'tis in the air, these days," the old salt said. "Every mother's son wants to be roving, each for his own good reason. Some for the sake of the gold, and Hugh here to find the place of the sunset and what's at the end of the world, eh, Hugh?"

The shape of the house is in the form of a letter E in honor of the queen