Good sir, look upon him--
But let it be with my eyes, and the care
You should owe to your daughter's life and safety,
Of which, without him, she's uncapable,
And you'll approve him worthy.
MASSINGER.
The apartment which the Buccaneer selected as his place of conference was at some distance from, though on a line with, that which Fleetword had so unwillingly tenanted. Its entrance was by two doors, one of secret construction, leading to the stairs, the other opening into the passage that was frequented by all who were connected with the Fire-fly.
"Now--now," said Robin, "tell--tell me, captain, how all the wonderful things of the past days have happened: it is a strange mystery, yet it was a horrid dream!"
Dalton again sighed, but more heavily than before, as he replied, "My adventures are soon told. I had despatched to the Protector such documents as I knew would lead him to prevent the marriage of Lady Constantia; my heart relented towards her, and I saw that Providence was working its reed in other ways without my aid. Secreted in one of the chapel vaults, I watched the coming of those who were to stay the ceremony. I knew the certainty that come they would, for I could rely upon the speed of the man I trusted, and that Oliver would act upon the instant I had no doubt. I have long had my own plans of revenge against the villain Burrell, but they were too slow for one so perfect in iniquity. Robin! he would have murdered me on board my own ship. I listened for the tramp of the soldiers--gloating in my own mind over his disappointment, and exulting in his fall, thinking how his proud spirit would be brought low amid the crowded court! But they tarried--I could not hear the sound of their horses' hoofs--although within the old abbey chapel were the bride, the bridegroom--(curse him!)--and their attendants. Again I listened--the ceremony began--I sniffed the breeze like a war-steed--I heard them coming, but the Preacher was speaking the words, and they would arrive too late. All consideration for my own safety was lost in my longing for revenge, and, I will add, my deep desire to save the lamb from the tiger's fangs. I rushed towards the chapel--there was a pistol-shot--it gave speed to my steps. At the door I encountered Burrell; and he--he, the fiend, screamed into my ears that my child was slain!"
Dalton and Robin Hays both shuddered, and some minutes had elapsed before the Buccaneer resumed his story.
"I know not what I did, except that the place was filled with armed men, and the dastard Burrell commanded the fanatic Jones (I remembered him well) to seize me; moreover, he would have fired, I believe he did fire, but my memory is sadly confused.
"Then Barbara, whose blood was streaming from her wound, sprang to my bosom--sweet girl!--and hung, as I thought, a corpse upon my arm. When I looked upon her pallid cheeks and livid lips, I could have braved a thousand deaths sooner than have left her to be buried in their black and filthy clay; and I spoke from my heart to them, and I think Lady Constantia spoke too; and they let us pass, me and my dead child!
"I carried her round the chapel, and sank with her into the vault, where I had been concealed--that which contains the passage leading up to Minster, and then sloping down the hill; and I placed my daughter on the ground and closed the entrance, as we have ever done. And then I sat on the earth and raised her head and shoulders on my knees, and loosening her kerchief to look at the wound, which I had no doubt had been inflicted by the Jewess Zillah--shall I ever forget the sensation!--I cannot describe it, so different from anything I ever felt--ever can feel:--her bosom was warm, as the fleece of a young unshorn lamb, and her heart palpitated within it." The rugged Buccaneer covered his face with his hands, and Robin, in a voice which strong emotion rendered almost inarticulate, said,----
"I know what must have been your feelings from what I myself felt so short a time past."
Hugh Dalton slowly withdrew his broad palms from his countenance, and looking somewhat sternly on the Ranger, replied, "Young man, that you love my daughter, I have seen but too plainly; and I take it ill that you told me not of it before." Robin would have interrupted,--but he motioned him to remain silent. "We will talk of it hereafter;--only this--you may love her, but you cannot love her with a parent's love. It is as deep as it is mysterious; it comes with the first look a father casts upon his babe; the infant, which to the whole world seems a mis-shapen, an unpleasant thing to look upon, to him is a being of most perfect beauty--the hope--the prop--the stay of his future life. Upon that weak, helpless, inanimate creature, his heart leans--the heart of the strongest man leans upon it. The world holds out no promise to tempt him like the well-doing of his child. It is a wonderful mystery," continued the Buccaneer, reverently uncovering his head, as men do when they are about to enter a place of worship; "it is most wonderful, the holy love which comes upon us, for the simple, senseless, powerless things, that fill us with so much hope, and strength, and energy! I saw a whale once, who, when her young one was struck by the harpoon, came right between it and the ship, and bore the blows, and took the fatal weapons again and again into her bleeding body; and when she was struggling in her flurry, and the sea around was dyed as red as scarlet, still she tried to save her offspring, and managed so as to die lying over it. It was the very time that I was bringing my own girl to England--a little creature, sleeping in my bosom--and it was by a vessel in our company the poor whale was killed; for I would not suffer one of my men to have a hand in such a sickening job:--but I never forgot it--never--how she lay over her young, shielding it to the last with her own body! I used to pray--I could pray whenever I took my Barbara into my arms!--I thought it a duty then to pray for her, and I trusted that she would hereafter pray for me. Had I always her sweet face to look upon, I should be free from many a crime!
--It is a beautiful mystery, I say again; and no one but myself, young man, can ever tell what I felt when I knew that she was yet alive! As soon as I had sufficiently collected my senses, I examined the wound. Often had I looked on blood; and wounds were familiar to me, as blackberries to a schoolboy; but I trembled from head to foot, as if I had never seen either. The ball had made its own way out under the shoulder; and, as consciousness was fast returning, I endeavoured to staunch the stream, which flowed so copiously that I began to dread the destruction of my newly raised hopes. While I was thus occupied, I heard so deeply drawn a sigh from some one close to me, that I started back, and was horrified at seeing the source of all the evil--the Jewess Zillah--pale as ashes, standing by my side. I cursed her with a wicked curse, and was about to inflict instant, but most unjust punishment. The unfortunate creature prostrated herself at my feet, and explained, as briefly as her sobs permitted, that, enraged at Burrell's treachery--finding herself deserted by Fleetword, whose faith she relied upon--imagining that Mistress Cecil was leagued against her, from the circumstance of her never taking notice of the communications she wrote and confided to Jeromio's care--wrought up, in fact, to a pitch of frenzy, she determined on destroying Burrell's destined bride, whose appearance she had confounded with that of my poor Barbara! Nothing could exceed her penitence. She had groped her way to the secret entrance into the tomb. It had been revealed to her by the traitor Jeromio. She returned with us after nightfall to this horrid place; and has ever since watched my poor child with the earnestness and care of a most devoted sister. I am astonished how she escaped Sir Willmott's vengeance. He was so hemmed in by difficulties, that he had no power to act, though he tried hard for it. The villain Jeromio----"
"I heard of that," interrupted Robin; "Roupall told me all: he met me but a little time past in the Fox Glen; and there, too, I saw the traitor's head, with the ravens feasting on their prey!"
"Ah! ah!" exclaimed Dalton, "is that the way Sir Willmott treats his wedding present! The Fox Glen is beneath his chamber window; so I suppose he cantered it out to find its own grave in the grassy hollow."
"Is this Barbara's father!" thought Robin, "and the man who would not kill a cub-whale?--How wonderful! how strange his modifications of feeling: the older he grows, the more incomprehensible he becomes."
Robin then detailed the particulars of his journey since he left the Gull's Nest, which, as we are already acquainted with them, need not be repeated here, and raised himself considerably in the Buccaneer's estimation by his attention, shrewdness, and, above all, by the account he gave of his interview with Cromwell.
"I believe it, Rob, I believe it--I am sure you would not betray me! But I fear we must abandon this place--this and all others of a similar description. I knew that as soon as internal commotions ceased, old Noll would root us out. He will set Burrell on the trail, if he can get no other informer; for he has never been too great not to make use of filthy tools to effect his purpose. He had been here long ago but that he dislikes to employ such troops as he has trained in hunting up moles and water-rats. Yet he thinks it a disgrace to his policy not to know all things, even the hiding-holes along the coast. There's good nesting in the Cornish cliffs; but I have done with it, pardon or no pardon. Sir Robert Cecil's gone mad, and I have a game to play there still. What you tell me of Walter is most strange; yet I feel certain he is safe, and my course, in reference to him, must be guided by the events that a very few hours will doubtless produce. Cromwell--Roundhead and rebel as he is--unless he be marvellously changed--has generosity enough to guarantee the youth's safety, were he a thousand times more dangerous than he can be. Whatever may be my fate, his will be a happy one. They may leave me to rot upon a gibbet, so he and my sweet Barbara are safe."
"But," observed Robin, "I dread no such peril for you. Even if danger awaits you in England, there are other lands--"
"Ah! but my child--my child! Shall I leave her among strangers, or take her into a world that will rob her of her wealth--innocence?"
"Gold will do much; there are many about the court of Oliver who love the yellow colour and the pleasant chink of coin."
"No, I have other and stronger means of buying mercy. But mercy is not all I want--I sometimes think, that were I to walk up to Whitehall, banned as I am, Cromwell would not touch a hair of my head. I would say, 'God direct me for the best!' only I fear He has no thought of me, except for my girl's sake: and, Robin, touching her, I must again say, that----"
Whatever the Buccaneer would have added, Springall's entrance at the moment prevented. He seemed delighted at meeting Robin, and inquired in the same breath if he had been with his mother. Robin said, "No." Springall then told him she was ill--fancied herself dying, and that, as the old dame seemed so wishful to see Mistress Cecil, saying she had something important to communicate to her, he had gone up to Cecil Place, and found a strange messenger to do his bidding. Robin needed no urging to seek his mother, whom he tenderly loved; and when he had left the room, the Buccaneer could not help observing, that a parent's first thoughts after a journey are with the child, but that a child does not always first fly to the parent: "And yet," pursued Dalton, "the boy loves his mother!"
"Captain o' mine," said the ever-joyous and affectionate sailor, who deserved the attachment bestowed upon him by the skipper--"Captain o' mine, I have news for you. You see, I sailed right for the old port, and just as I was going to steer into harbour, I spied one of the steel-caps lounging about the great gate, and peeping through the bars like a lion that would and couldn't; but I knew he was one who could if he would, and though I had a message for Mistress Cecil, yet I didn't see the good of trusting him; and so I crowded sail to-leeward into the Green Cave, and on under the arch that has openings enough; but no one could I see until I was just by the church at Minster, when, on the look-out, I got a glimpse of a sail, and suspecting it to be something in the privateer line, I hove-to and used my trumpet, and who should it turn out to be but the young Cromwell! and I couldn't for the life of me help hoisting false colours and dealing in the spirit line; so she took me for a ghost when I delivered Mother Hays's message to Mistress Constantia: then she blew out like a nor'-wester, and flouted, and called names; and what else do ye think she did? By Jove, she shouted, 'Below there!--turn out the guard!' and stamped her little foot. Never trust me, if her ankle isn't as neatly turned as the smoothest whistle that ever hung from a boatswain's neck! After a while she said something about jugglery, and I called her a little Roundhead; and, to be sure, how she did stamp! Then presently down tumbled Mistress Maud from the steeple, where, I guess, she had been making observations, and Lady Frances rated the waiting-maid soundly, which I didn't grudge her--the frippery, insolent baggage! It isn't a month since she called me a chip of the jib-boom and an ugly fellow!--Ugly fellow, indeed;" repeated Springall, twitching up his trowsers--"I wonder what she meant by ugly fellow!"
"So do I," said the Skipper, with a sigh; for his mind was still 'harping on his daughter:' "So do I, but women have strange fancies. Let me now ask you what news you have, for I cannot see how this concerns me."
"Let me read my log my own way, or I cannot read it at all--and you know, master, I never spin a long yarn, except when I can't help it."
Dalton smiled, for, of all the youths he had ever known, Springall loved the most to hear himself talk.
"When I had delivered my message, and had the satisfaction of knowing that a rascally Roundhead, and a princess (as they call her,) was employed in doing my bidding," continued the lad, "I tacked about, and loitered along, looking at the queer tackling of the hedges, and the gay colours hoisted by the little flowers, and wondering within myself how any one would like to be confined to the land with its hills and hollows, where it's the same, same thing, over and over again; when I spied two steel caps and a gentleman in black steering along the road to Cecil Place. So I thought it would be only civil to go with them, seeing they were strangers; but I did not care to let them spy me, so I anchored in the hedge till they came up, and then crept along--along, on the other side, like a tortoise, and as slowly too, faith! for the road is so bad they were forced to lead their horses, except the black one, who, I found, was the Protector's own doctor going to cure Sir Robert Cecil! What do you think of that, captain?"
Dalton saw no necessity for reply, and Springall continued:--
"I gathered from their talk that Cromwell himself was on the road, coming bodily to inquire into the murder, (as they supposed,) and to rout out the smugglers; and the rascals were even talking about the prizes, having heard the place was full of riches; and they said they were sure that more than one thing brought his Highness such a journey. At every stumble their horses made, the psalm-singing scoundrels offered up an ejaculation. May I never reef a sail, captain, if they didn't pray more, going that length of road, than you, and I, and all the crew of the Fire-fly put together, have prayed during the last twelve, ay, twice twelve months!--How is Mistress Barbara?"
"What a giddy mind is yours, Springall," said Dalton; "in the same breath you speak of danger, and ask for my peace-loving child."
"More than she would do for me," replied the boy, sulkily, adding, with some of the wisdom of matured manhood, "she must not remain here, though, no, not another night, for who knows what those rascals would be at? I am much inclined to think with the crop-eared fellows, that his Highness (the devil take such highnesses, say I!) would never lay to windward and trust himself on the island, unless he had good reason to think he could kill two, ay, ten birds with one stone; he is too old a man now to go dancing about the country because of a murder, or a wedding--neither of which he cares much about."
"Except when they come home--quite home--and Mistress Constantia is to him like an own child. There's a deal of difference in the colour of our own blood and that of other people. But we must see to it, Springall, and without delay. The Fire-fly is, as you know, tricked out like a Dutch lugger, masts--sails--all! I defy even Robin Hays to know her; and I had a report spread at Sheerness and Queenborough that she had the plague aboard. Tom o' Coventry, and another o' the lads have talked of nothing else at the hostelries; and not an hour ago I sent a message to Jabez Tippet, with a three gallon memorandum of the best Nantz, so that he might prate of it to all who crossed the Ferry. Her cargo is nearly discharged, and there are but four men aboard; they walk the deck by two, as sentries, to keep up the deception; but evil is in the wind when the Protector is stirring. I should have got her out, far out before, had I not been obliged to move her backwards and forwards, owing to the cursed mischances of the times; and, Springall, I am not the man I was."
"Look, captain!" said the boy, energetically; "I would rather set a torch to the powder-chest of that gay ship, than have her turned into a Roundhead. Didn't I with my own eyes see a lubberly rascal take a chisel, or some o' their land tools, and shave every lock of hair off the figure-head of the 'Royal Charles,' and even off the beard, shorten the nose into a stub, and then scrawl under it, 'The blessed change; this regenerated vessel will be known hereafter as the Holy Oliver'? Wasn't that blasphemy? Come, captain, rouse yourself; let's call a council--there's little Robin Hays, he loves her timbers as he loves his life--there's the boatswain, and a lot of honest hands. Let's ship the ballast--the women I mean--and off for the Americees. Let them blow Gull's Nest to the devil, if they like; so our trim ship is safe, what need we care? Ill luck is in the land to any who touch it, save to put off a rich cargo or take in fresh water."
Dalton shook his head, and his heart sank within him; his mind becoming more and more perplexed, when he remembered the two helpless females who depended on him--the one for life, the other for justice--his own desire for pardon, too, struggling with his affection for his vessel.
He paced the room for a few moments, and then, accompanied by the animated and daring young sailor, sallied forth in search of Robin Hays, having first resolved that the preacher Fleetword should be sent to keep watch by the bedside of the dying woman.
