The Buccaneer Part 48

It was past the hour of the next day's noon before the preacher recovered from the effects of potations so unusual to him. It was then that Dalton questioned him, and discovered the artifice and cruelty of the treacherous Burrell, in abandoning the poor preacher to starvation: a consequence that must have occurred, had not the Skipper providentially stood in need of some articles of bedding, that were kept in this chamber, as matters rarely needed by his crew.

Fleetword, having explained what he had done with the required papers, would have willingly departed, but Dalton detained him, frankly saying, that he cared not, just then, to trust any one abroad, who had seen so much of the mysteries of his singular palace. Without further ceremony, he was again confined, in a small cupboard-like cavity, close to the hostelry of the Gull's Nest.

It was not long after the preacher's second imprisonment, that Robin Hays might have been seen, treading the outward mazes of the cliff, and, without pausing at his mother's dwelling, approaching the spot where, on a former occasion, Burrell had received the signal for entrance from Hugh Dalton. He was ignorant of his mother's illness; but the information that Jack Roupall unwittingly communicated was not lost upon him; and he had earnestly scanned the waters, to see if the Fire-fly were off the coast. Though the gallant sparkling s.h.i.+p hardly hoisted the same colours twice in the same week, and though she had as many false figure-heads as there are days in January, yet Robin thought he never could be deceived in her appearance, and he saw at once, that though there were many s.h.i.+ps in the offing, she certainly was not within sight of land. The feeling that he should look on Barbara no more was another source of agony to the unhappy Ranger. Yet he could hardly believe that the Buccaneer would so soon part with the beautiful form of a child he so dearly loved. He struck his own peculiar signal against the rock, and it was quickly answered by the Skipper himself, who extended his hand towards his friend with every demonstration of joy. Robin started at seeing the Buccaneer in so cheerful a mood, and was endeavouring to speak, when the other prevented his words from coming forth, by placing his hand on his lips. The Ranger's head grew dizzy--his knees smote against each other, and he gazed on Dalton's countenance, eager to ascertain if there was a possibility of hope, or if excess of grief had deranged his intellect.

"Silence! silence! silence!" repeated the Buccaneer, in the subdued voice of a puny girl; and Robin thought his eye glared wildly as he spoke.

"Where--where is she?" muttered Robin, leaning for support against a projecting stone, that served as one of the slides for the rough, but skilfully-managed doorway--his heart panting with anxiety to behold, and yet dreading to look upon the form of the dead Barbara. The Buccaneer pointed to where the skins had hung when Fleetword was in the chamber, and the Ranger attempted to move towards it; but his feet were as if rooted to the earth. Dalton watched his agitation with a curious eye; yet Robin perceived it not. He made several ineffectual attempts to stir from his position; but continued fixed in the same spot, unable to withdraw his gaze from the opening. At length the blood circulated more freely in his veins, his chest heaved, as if the exertion of breathing was an effort he could not long continue; and he staggered, as a drunken man, towards the entrance. The uncertainty of his step was such that he would have fallen into the chamber, had not the Buccaneer seized him within his powerful grasp, on the threshold of the inner chamber, and silently directed his attention towards a pile of cus.h.i.+ons, covered with a variety of coloured silks and furs, on which lay a form he could not mistake. The hair, divested of its usual cap, rested in shadowy ma.s.ses on the throat and bosom, and the light of the small lamp fell upon a cheek and brow white as monumental marble. By the side of this rude, yet luxurious couch, crouched another female, holding a fan, or rather a ma.s.s of superb ostrich feathers, which she moved slowly to and fro, so as to create a current of air within the cell. It contained one other inmate--the little and ugly Crisp--lying, coiled up, at the foot of the cus.h.i.+ons, his nose resting between his small, rough paws; his eyes fixed upon his master, to hail whom he sprang not forward, as was his custom, with a right joyful and doggish salutation, but, mutely and quietly, wagged his dwarfish tail--so gently, that it would not have brushed off the down from a b.u.t.terfly's wing.

Robin grasped his hands convulsively together--shook back the hair that curled over his forehead, as if it prevented his seeing clearly--his breathing became still more painfully distinct--large drops of moisture burst upon his brow--his tongue moved, but he could utter no sound--his under lip worked in fearful convulsion--and, despite Dalton's efforts to restrain him, he sprang to the side of the couch with the bound of a red deer, and falling on his knees, succeeded in exclaiming,--

"She lives! she lives!"

The sweet sleeper at once awoke; the long dark lashes separated, and the mild hazel eye of Barbara turned once more upon Robin Hays; a weak smile separated lips that were as white as the teeth they sheltered, as she extended her hand towards the Ranger. But, as if the effort was too much, her eyes again closed; and she would have looked as if asleep in death, but that Robin kissed her hand with a respectful feeling that would have done honour to men of higher breeding. The maiden blood tinged her cheek with a pale and gentle colour--the hue that tints the inner leaves of a blush rose.

The Buccaneer had been a silent spectator of this scene, and it had taught him a new lesson--one, too, not without its bitterness. When Robin, with more discretion than could have been expected from him, silently withdrew into the outer room, he beheld Dalton standing in an att.i.tude of deep and painful thought near its furthermost entrance. As the Ranger approached, his heart swelling with an overflowing of joy and grat.i.tude--his head reeling with sensations so new, so undefinable, that he doubted if the air he breathed, the earth he trod on, was the same as it had been but an hour, a moment before--yet suffering still from previous agony, and receiving back Barbara as an offering from the grave, that might have closed over her;--as the Ranger approached the Buccaneer, in a frame of mind which it is utterly impossible to define, Dalton threw upon him a look so full of contempt, as he glanced over his diminutive and disproportioned form, that Robin never could have forgotten it, had it not pa.s.sed unnoticed in the deep feeling of joy and thankfulness that possessed his whole soul. He seized the Skipper's hand with a warmth and energy of feeling that moved his friend again towards him. The generous heart is rarely indifferent to the generous-hearted.

Dalton gave back the pressure, although he turned away the next moment with a heavy sigh.

Ah! it is a common error with men to believe that women value beauty as much as it is valued by themselves. Such a feeling as that his daughter entertained for Robin Hays, Dalton, even in his later years, could no more understand than an eagle can comprehend the quiet affection of the cooing ring-dove for its partner: the one would glory in sailing with his mate in the light of the tropical sun, would scream with her over the agonies of a dying fawn, and dip the beaks of their callow young in blood; the other, nested in some gentle dell, the green turf beneath watered by a brook, rippling its cadences to his sweet, though monotonous, melody--would peel for his companion the husk from the ripening corn, and shadow his brood from the noonday heat. Yet the love of both is perfect, according to its kind.

The time had been when, as Hugh Dalton walked on the deck of his bright Fire-fly, and counted the stars, guided the helm, or watched the clouds flitting past the disk of the silver moon, he thought that, if his pardon were granted, and he could bestow his s.h.i.+p upon one in the beauty and prime of manhood, who would take Barbara to his bosom, and call her by the hallowed name of "wife," he could lay his head upon his pillow, and die in peace, the grandsire of a race of sons, who would carry the name of Dalton honourably over the waves of many lands. He had never, in all his adventures, met with a youth who had gained so much upon his affections as the lad Springall. He knew him to be brave and honest, of a frank and generous nature, well calculated to win the heart of any maiden; and he had arranged for the youth's temporary residence at Cecil Place, at a time when he knew the baronet could not refuse aught that he demanded, with a view to forward a long-cherished design.

"Barbara will see, and, I am sure, love him," quoth Dalton to himself: "how can it be otherwise? Matters may change ere long, and, if they do----. His family is of an old Kentish stock, well known for their loyalty, which, in truth, made the boy quit the canting s.h.i.+p, the Providence, when he met with a fitting opportunity. She cannot choose but love him; and even if, at the end of ten or twenty years, he should turn out a gentleman, he'll never scorn her then; for, faith, he could not; she is too like her mother to be slighted of mortal man!" And so he dreamed, and fancied, as scores of fathers have done before and since, that all things were going on rightly. When Springall held occasional communication with him, he never saw him tread the deck without mentally exclaiming, "What a brave skipper that boy will make! He has the very gait of a commander: the step free, yet careless; the voice clear as a warning bell; the eye keen, and as strong as an eagle's." Then he would look upon his s.h.i.+p, and, apostrophising her as a parent would a fondling child, continue,--

"Ah! your figure-head will be all the same when he has the command, and your flag will never change. You may double the Cape then without dread of a privateer; crowd sail beneath the great s.h.i.+p Argo, or be rocked by any land-breeze in Britain without dread of molestation. The lad may look, as I have often done, over the lee-gangway, during the morning watch, seeking the sight of the far off fleet--the fleet that will hail him as a friend, not a foe! And he will love every spar of your timber for the sake of old Dalton's daughter!"

The feelings of the Buccaneer towards Robin Hays were of a very different nature. He loved and esteemed the manikin, and valued his ready wit and his extreme honesty. He was also gratified by the Ranger's skill in penmans.h.i.+p and book-learning, and took marvellous delight in his wild sea-songs; but, that he could look to be the husband of his daughter, had never for a moment entered his thoughts. Now, however, the unwelcome truth suddenly flashed upon him; there were signs and tokens that could not mislead: the fearful agitation of the one--the evident joy of the other--the flush that tinged her cheek, the smile that dwelt, but for a moment, upon her pallid lip, gave such evidence of the state of the maiden's heart, that Dalton could not waver in his opinion--could not for an instant doubt that all his cherished plans were as autumn leaves, sent on some especial mission through the air, when a whirlwind raves along the earth.

To the Buccaneer it was a bitter knowledge; the joy that his daughter was of the living, and not among the dead, was, for the time, more than half destroyed by the certainty that she had thrown away the jewel of her affections upon one whom, in his wrath, Dalton termed a "deformed ape."

The Buccaneer turned from the Ranger in heavy and heart-felt disappointment; then walked two or three times across the outward room, and then motioned Robin Hays to follow him up the stairs, leading to the back chamber of the small hostelry of the Gull's Nest Crag.

CHAPTER VII.

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.

Ma.s.sINGER.

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 pa.s.sage 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 doc.u.ments 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 s.h.i.+p. 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 pa.s.s, 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 pa.s.sage 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 wors.h.i.+p; "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 s.h.i.+p, 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, s.h.i.+elding 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 circ.u.mstance 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 gra.s.sy 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 c.h.i.n.k 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, 'G.o.d 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 anch.o.r.ed 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. 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?"