# The Dark Frigate/Chapter 24

CHAPTER XXIV
AND AGAIN THE ROSE OF DEVON
The story of Philip Marsham and of Sir John Bristol, and of the fortune left by the good Doctor Marsham of Little Grimsby, — how it came to his grandson and was lost in the war that brought ruin to many a noble family, — is a tale that may some day be worth the telling. Of that, I make no promises.
The years that followed were wild and turbulent, but during their passage Phil chanced upon one reminder and another of his earlier days of adventuring. He saw once again the long, ranting madman who had carried the great book. He might not have known the fellow, who was in a company of Brownists or Anabaptists, or some such people, had he not heard him crying out in his voice like a cracked trumpet, to the great wonder and admiration of his fellows, ‘‘Never was a man beset with such diversity of thoughts.” There was Jacob, too, who had sneaked away like a rat on the eve of the day when Tom Jordan’s schemes fell about his ears: Phil once came upon him face to face, but when their eyes met Jacob slipped round a corner and was gone. He was a subtle man and wise, and of no intention to be reminded of his days as a pirate.
Philip Marsham went to the war with Sir John Bristol, and fought for the King, and rose to be a captain; and with the story of Philip Marsham is interwoven inseparably the story of Anne Bristol and of her father, ​Sir John. For Sir John Bristol died at the second battle of Newbury with his head on Philip Marsham’s knees; and in his grief at losing the brave knight who had befriended him, the lad prayed God for vengeance on the Roundhead armies.
And yet, though his grief was bitter, he had too just a mind to see only one side of a great war. Once, when they sent him from the King’s camp on a secret mission, the enemy ran him to cover, and he escaped them only by doubling back and hiding in the garret of a cottage where he lay high under the thatch and watched through a dusty little window the street from the Red Boar Inn down the hill to the distant meadows, without being himself seen. He heard far away a murmur as of droning bees. Minutes passed and he heard the drone settle into a hollow rumble, from which there emerged after a time the remote sound of rattling drums and the occasional voices of shouting men. Then, of a sudden, there broke on the air a sound as of distant thunder, in which he made out a chorus :—
The voices of the singing men came booming over the meadows. They were deep, strong voices and there was that in their volume and fierce earnestness which made a man shiver.
Phil heard a dog barking; he saw a woman standing in the door of a cottage; he saw a cloud of dust rise above the meadow; then they came.
First a band of men on foot in steel caps, with their ​firelocks shouldered, swinging out in long, firm strides. Then a little group of kettledrums, hammering away in a fierce rhythm. Then a number of horsemen, with never a glint of gold on their bridles and never a curl from under their iron helms. Then, rank behind rank, a solid column of foot that flowed along the dusty road over hillock and hollow, dark and sombre, undulating like a torpid stream of something thick and slow that mightily forces a passage over every obstacle in its way.
They came up the hill, turning neither to right nor to left, up the hill and over it, and away to the north, where King Charles and all his armies lay.
It was a fearful sight, for they were stern, determined men. There was no gallant flippancy in their carriage; there was no lordly show of ribbands and linen and gold and silver lace. They frowned as they marched, and looked about them little. They bore so steadily on, they made one feel they were men of tempered metal, men of no blood and no flesh, men with no love for the brave adventures of life, but with a streak of iron in their very souls.
Philip Marsham had heard the men of the Rose of Devon go into battle with cries and shouting, and laugh when they killed; he had seen old Sir John Bristol throw back his head proudly and jest with the girls of the towns on their march; but these were men of another pattern.
He became aware, as he watched them go by — and he then knew the meaning of fear, safely hidden though he was, behind the dirty and small window in the gable; for had one man of those thousands found him there, it would have ended the fighting days of Philip Marsham — he became aware that here was a ​courage so stubborn there was no mastering it; that here was a purposeful strength such as all the wild blades in his master’s camp could never match. Their faces showed it; the marching rhythm of the never-ending column was alive with it.
Behind the first regiments of infantry, horsemen came, and, at an interval in the ranks of the cavalry, five men rode together. The eyes of one, who led the four by a span or two, were bent on the road, and his face was stern and strong and thoughtful. As Phil watched him, the first hesitating surmisal became conviction, and long afterward he learned that he had been right. From his gable window he had seen Oliver Cromwell go by.
All that afternoon the column streamed on, and in the early darkness Philip fell asleep to the sound of men marching. In the morning they were gone, and he went on his way and fulfilled his mission; but though the King’s men fought with a gallantry that never lessened, the cause of the King was lost, and the day broke when Philip Marsham was ready to turn his back on England.
So he came a second time to the harbour of Bideford, in Devon, and had it in his mind to take ship for some distant land where he could forget the years of his youth and early manhood. He was in the mood, then, to envy Sir John Bristol and all the gallant company that had died on the fields of Naseby and Newbury, and of many another great battle; for he was the King’s man, and great houses of the country had fallen, and many lords and gentlemen whose estates had gone to pay the cost of Cromwell’s wars had as much reason as he, and more, to wonder, at the sight of deep water, ​whether it were better to die by one’s own hand or to seek new fortunes beyond the sea.
There were many vessels in the harbour and his gaze wandered over them, ships and pinks and ketches and a single galliot from the Low Countries, until his eyes came at last to one of singularly familiar aspect. He looked at her a long time, then strolled down to the quay and accosted an aged man who was warming his rheumatic limbs in the sun.
"What ship is that,” said Captain Marsham, “which lies yonder, in line with the house on the farther shore to the right of the three trees?”
The aged man squinted over the harbour to pick up the bearings his questioner had given him and cleared his throat with a husky cough.
"Why, that,” he said, ‘‘bees the frigate they call Rose of Devon.”
“The Rose of Devon — nay, she cannot be the Rose of Devon!”
“Can and beës. Why does ’ee look so queer, sir?”
“Not the Rose of Devon!”
"Art ’ee addled?” He laughed like a cackling hen.
"Aye, an’ yon’s her master.”
The master turned when the young captain accosted him, and replied, with reasonable civility, ‘‘Yea, the Rose of Devon, Captain Hosmer, at your service, sir. Passage? Yea, we can take you, but you’re a queer sort to ask passage ere you know whither she sails. Is it murder or theft?”
“Neither. The old order is changing and I would go abroad.”
“To the colonies?”
“They tell me all the colonies are of a piece with ​these Roundheads here, and that as many psalms are whined in Boston in New England as in all the conventicles in London.”
He laughed in good humour. ‘‘You are rash,” said he. ‘‘Were I of the other side, your words might cost you your head. But we’re going south to Barbados, and there you’ll find men to your own taste.”
Captain Philip Marsham wished no more than that. So he struck a bargain for passage, and paid with gold, and sailed from England for the second time in the old Rose of Devon, the dark frigate that by God’s grace had come back to Bideford in the hour when he most needed her.
THE END