. . . Ned was your kinsman, Jasper?"
"My cousin--the son of my mother's brother." The man spoke, like Raleigh,
in a Devon accent, with the creamy slur in the voice and the sing-song fall
of West England.
"Ah, I remember. Your mother was Cecily Coffyn, from Combas on the Moor at
the back of Lustleigh. A pretty girl--I mind her long ago. I would I were
on the Moor now, where it is always fresh and blowing. . . . And your
father--the big Frenchman who settled on one of Gawain Champernoun's
manors. I loved his jolly laugh. But Cecily sobered him, for the Coffyns
were always a grave and pious race. Gawain is dead these many years. Where
is your father?
"He died in '82 with Sir Humfrey Gilbert."
Raleigh bowed his head. "He went to God with brother Humfrey! Happy fate!
Happy company! But he left a brave son behind him, and I have lost mine.
Have you a boy, Jasper?"
"But the one. My wife died ten years ago come Martinmas. The child is with
his grandmother on the Moor."
"A promising child?"
"A good lad, so far as I have observed him, and that is not once a
twelvemonth.
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