very panic of prudence, and resolved to
keep out of her way; and yet the days ran slowly, and Lady Grenville
when at home was stupid enough to talk and think about nothing but her
husband; and when she went to Stow, and left the Don alone in one corner
of the great house at Bideford, what could he do but lounge down to the
butt-gardens to show off his fine black cloak and fine black feather,
see the shooting, have a game or two of rackets with the youngsters, a
game or two of bowls with the elders, and get himself invited home to
supper by Mr. Salterne?

And there, of course, he had it all his own way, and ruled the roast
(which he was fond enough of doing) right royally, not only on account
of his rank, but because he had something to say worth hearing, as a
travelled man. For those times were the day-dawn of English commerce;
and not a merchant in Bideford, or in all England, but had his
imagination all on fire with projects of discoveries, companies,
privileges, patents, and settlements; with gallant rivalry of the brave
adventures of Sir Edward Osborne and his new London Company of Turkey
Merchants; with the privileges just granted by the Sultan Murad Khan
to the English; with the worthy Levant voyages of Roger Bodenham in
the great bark Aucher, and of John Fox, and Lawrence Aldersey, and John
Rule; and with hopes from the vast door for Mediterranean trade, which
the crushing of the Venetian power at Famagusta in Cyprus, and the
alliance made between Elizabeth and the Grand Turk, had just thrown
open. So not a word could fall from the Spaniard about the Mediterranean
but took root at once in right fertile soil. Besides, Master Edmund
Hogan had been on a successful embassy to the Emperor of Morocco; John
Hawkins and George Fenner had been to Guinea (and with the latter Mr.
Walter Wren, a Bideford man), and had traded there for musk and civet,
gold and grain; and African news was becoming almost as valuable as West
Indian. Moreover, but two months before had gone from London Captain
Hare in the bark Minion, for Brazil, and a company of adventurers with
him, with Sheffield hardware, and "Devonshire and Northern kersies,"
hollands and "Manchester cottons," for there was a great opening for
English goods by the help of one John Whithall, who had married a
Spanish heiress, and had an ingenio and slaves in Santos. (Don't smile,
reader, or despise the day of small things, and those who sowed the seed
whereof you reap the m