about the
mariners of Cornwall. This place belongs to Old Pendragon, whom we call
the Admiral; though he retired before getting the rank. The spirit of
Raleigh and Hawkins is a memory with the Devon folk; it's a modern fact
with the Pendragons. If Queen Elizabeth were to rise from the grave
and come up this river in a gilded barge, she would be received by
the Admiral in a house exactly such as she was accustomed to, in every
corner and casement, in every panel on the wall or plate on the table.
And she would find an English Captain still talking fiercely of fresh
lands to be found in little ships, as much as if she had dined with
Drake."

"She'd find a rum sort of thing in the garden," said Father Brown,
"which would not please her Renaissance eye. That Elizabethan domestic
architecture is charming in its way; but it's against the very nature of
it to break out into turrets."

"And yet," answered Fanshaw, "that's the most romantic and Elizabethan
part of the business. It was built by the Pendragons in the very days
of the Spanish wars; and though it's needed patching and even rebuilding
for another reason, it's always been rebuilt in the old way. The story
goes that the lady of Sir Peter Pendragon built it in this place and
to this height, because from the top you can just see the corner where
vessels turn into the river mouth; and she wished to be the first to see
her husband's ship, as he sailed home from the Spanish Main."

"For what other reason," asked Father Brown, "do you mean that it has
been rebuilt?"

"Oh, there's a strange story about that, too," said the young squire
with relish. "You are really in a land of strange stories. King Arthur
was here and Merlin and the fairies before him. The story goes that Sir
Peter Pendragon, who (I fear) had some of the faults of the pirates
as well as the virtues of the sailor, was bringing home three Spanish
gentlemen in honourable captivity, intending to escort them to
Elizabeth's court. But he was a man of flaming and tigerish temper, and
coming to high words with one of them, he caught him by the throat and
flung him by accident or design, into the sea. A second Spaniard, who
was the brother of the first, instantly drew his sword and flew at
Pendragon, and after a short but furious combat in which both got three
wounds in as many minutes, Pendragon drove his blade through the other's
body and the second Spaniard was accounted for. As it happened the ship
had alread