Johnnie Morgan had been to Newnham, and had spent a whole afternoon in Dorothy's company. Not once had she snubbed him or even contradicted him. Johnnie was home again, quietly happy. There was a battle of wit and song fixed for the night at the local tavern; several "jolly dogs" had waylaid the young farmer and tried to drag him off for an evening's revelry, but he would have none of it. The sun was going down over the hills, and Johnnie sat in his parlour and watched it. His chair was tilted back against the heavy table, and his feet were on the window-ledge half shrouded in flowers. He stared at the rosy sky and dreamed dreams of the same colour. Johnnie heard quick footsteps coming up to the porch, and immediately afterwards there was a lusty banging at the door. "Plague take 'em!" exclaimed the contemplative youth; "I'll not go." A little, dark-haired maiden, who, with her mother, formed the whole of the farmer's domestic establishment, came into the room. "The admiral's man would speak with you, master," she said. Johnnie's feet were on the floor in an instant. "Show him in," he cried. A weather-beaten Devon man, sailor to his finger-tips, rolled into the room. The two men gripped hands. "At last?" asked Johnnie in a low tone. "At last!" was the reply. "Gatcombe jetty at nightfall, and well armed." "I'll be there." Without further words the messenger turned about and went elsewhere on his errand. Morgan at once got out his sword, put on a thick leathern doublet and boots reaching to his thighs. Then, well knowing that he might be setting out on an all-night expedition, he proceeded to eat a hasty but hearty supper. At the appointed time he stood with about a dozen others on the river-bank. The tide was about at half-flow and running strongly; moreover, a breeze was coming up behind it from the south-west. There was no moon, clouds were packing, and there was every sign of a pitch-dark night. The admiral's roomy boat, with its mast stepped and sail ready for hoisting, bobbed up and down on the water. Drake himself was there to receive his men. "A rare night on the river for fish poachers, smugglers, and other nefarious rascals," said he. "True, admiral," answered a Gatcombe pilot; "and I trow we shall find it trying work looking for black men on a black night." "Well spoken, master pilot; but if thou canst keep our lives free of danger from shoal and sandbank, we'll e'en try to do the rest." "I'll warrant ye safe passage anywhere 'twixt Chepstow and Gloucester, Sir Francis." "I ask no more.--Now, gentlemen, aboard!"