draft of one for my pleasure of
evenings.' Simon smiled down on them all. 'Whitgift blood is terrible
resolute--on the she-side,'said Puck.

'Didn't You ever see Sir Francis Drake again?'Dan asked.

'With one thing and another, and my being made a burgess of Rye, I never
clapped eyes on him for the next twenty years. Oh, I had the news of
his mighty doings the world over. They was the very same bold, cunning
shifts and passes he'd worked with beforetimes off they Dutch sands,
but, naturally, folk took more note of them. When Queen Bess made him
knight, he sent my Aunt a dried orange stuffed with spiceries to smell
to. She cried outrageous on it. She blamed herself for her foretellings,
having set him on his won'erful road; but I reckon he'd ha' gone that
way all withstanding. Curious how close she foretelled it! The world in
his hand like an apple, an' he burying his best friend, Mus' Doughty--'

'Never mind for Mus' Doughty,' Puck interrupted. 'Tell us where you met
Sir Francis next.'

'Oh, ha! That was the year I was made a burgess of Rye--the same year
which King Philip sent his ships to take England without Frankie's
leave.'

'The Armada!' said Dan contentedly. 'I was hoping that would come.'

'I knowed Frankie would never let 'em smell London smoke, but plenty
good men in Rye was two-three minded about the upshot. 'Twas the noise
of the gun-fire tarrified us. The wind favoured it our way from off
behind the Isle of Wight. It made a mutter like, which growed and
growed, and by the end of a week women was shruckin' in the streets.
Then they come slidderin' past Fairlight in a great smoky pat vambrished
with red gun-fire, and our ships flyin' forth and duckin' in again. The
smoke-pat sliddered over to the French shore, so I knowed Frankie was
edgin' the Spanishers toward they Dutch sands where he was master. I
says to my Aunt, "The smoke's thinnin' out. I lay Frankie's just about
scrapin' his hold for a few last rounds shot. 'Tis time for me to go."

'"Never in them clothes," she says. "Do on the doublet I bought you to
be made burgess in, and don't you shame this day."

'So I mucked it on, and my chain, and my stiffed Dutch breeches and all.

'"I be comin', too," she says from her chamber, and forth she come
pavisandin' like a peacock--stuff, ruff, stomacher and all. She was a
notable woman.'

'But how did you go? You haven't told us,' said Una.

'In my own ship--but half-share was my Aunt's. In the ANTON