The Buccaneer Part 49

"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 s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

E'en such is Time; which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have; And pays us nought but age and dust, Which in the dark and silent grave, When we have wander'd all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

Robin, when he quitted the Buccaneer, proceeded not towards his mother's house, but again entered the chamber in which Barbara lay: he paused, and listened to ascertain if she again slept. He heard no sound, and at length ventured to divide the drapery, and look within. The motion, slight as it was, was noticed by the gentle maid, who beckoned with her finger, and her lover was in an instant by her side.

"I shall be well--soon well again, Robin," she murmured; "and I know you will be glad when I am so."

Robin made no reply, but stood wondering at the exceeding beauty of the beloved object that lay upon that strange, but not ungraceful couch. He had heretofore only seen Barbara in the oddly-fas.h.i.+oned dress, and with the humble bearing of a servant; but now, reclining on piles of skins and velvets, her hair falling in unconstrained and untutored profusion over her white throat, and shrouding her slight figure, she seemed to him the embodying of all he had ever imagined as belonging to the exquisite creatures of other worlds. Sour and sarcastic as he was, there were few in that age who had more frequently dreamed of the pure and holy beings that people the imagination of richly-endowed minds.

Solitude is the nurse of all that is good within us. The world stains what it touches; and the more we withdraw from it, the better we become.

Robin knew much of its wickedness; but, fortunately, had ever sufficient leisure and sufficient loneliness for reflection. Never tell us, that a man can walk beneath the rainbow's arch, and not think of the power that placed it there! that he can stand on the tall cliff's peak, and not drink in the fullness of G.o.d's exceeding glory--that he can hear the small lambs bleat, or inhale the perfume of the hawthorn, without thankfulness to the great Author of all! Devoid of any thing like a settled creed, he still had many vague, yet sublime conceptions of the mightiness and the goodness of a Power that fills the universe with His presence. Many there are with such belief; and many, whose hearts aspire to a more defined and intimate knowledge of the Great Fountain of Life; and for lack of opportunity--for want of proper direction, either plunge amid the pitfalls and quagmires of infidelity, or are lost amid the equally dangerous fallacies of various and contradictory interpretations of the same perfect and beautiful creed. Happy was it for the Ranger that she he so truly loved was religious in its purest and simplest sense--gifted with that gentle and holy wisdom, which instructed her in the honest rule of right, and rendered her un.o.btrusively impervious to temptation.

"I shall be soon well again," she repeated; "and do not look so sadly on me, Robin; indeed I shall soon be well."

"Thank G.o.d for that, Barbara!" he replied. "I bless G.o.d that it is so!"

"Robin! Do you really mean that you do thank G.o.d: is it your heart, or your lips that speak?"

"As G.o.d sees me, I think that both speak, Barbara."

"Then," said the girl, "I bless G.o.d more for that than for the saving of my life. I pray daily for those to whom I owe much; but for you and my father I say double prayers."

"Because you think we need them doubly?" inquired the Ranger, smiling.

"Even so; for since I have lain here, not being able to talk much with that kind stranger, who has more than atoned for what she did by her present goodness to me, I have had time for reflection; and--and--I have prayed very much for you, Robin Hays."

"Perhaps," said the Ranger, (his strong and turbulent feelings struggling painfully in his bosom,) "perhaps, Barbara, your prayers are all you mean to give me?"

"Robin," replied the maiden, while a flush pa.s.sed over her pale cheek, "you are often unjust; but I forgive it: for you are abroad in the world, which, I believe, makes people unkind. And yet I did not mean you were unkind, Robin. Now do not turn away so strangely. I would give the life that has been so lately restored to me, that your faith was as my faith,--that your G.o.d was my G.o.d."

The Ranger fell on his knees by the side of the couch, and clasping his hands energetically together, replied, not in a loud, but in a low, earnest tone,--

"Barbara, teach me your faith, and I will learn it--learn any thing from your lips: I will cast aside my waywardness--my nature shall be changed--I will become gentle as a babe. And as to your G.o.d, I am no heathen, Barbara, but an Englishman, and all so born know there is but One to wors.h.i.+p!"

"Ay, but One," replied the gentle and thoughtful girl; "yet a wild, reckless temper like yours is ever verging to idolatry, to the formation of many G.o.ds. Do you not wors.h.i.+p Mammon when you risk body and soul to procure ill-gotten gold?"

"Reformation is the work of time, and there will be time for it, Barbara, when you are better. I will sit during the whole length of the Sabbath-days, winter and summer all the same, from sunrise to sunset, and listen to the word of G.o.d: I will not speak, I will not look except to you, and you shall read to me from the beginning to the end, and explain, and pray: and even on week-days I will hear it for one hour each evening, from Monday till Sat.u.r.day, week after week, till I understand what you expound. Will not that improve me, Barbara?"

A smile, succeeded by an expression of much anxiety, pa.s.sed over her innocent countenance, and then she spoke.

"G.o.d knows, Robin, that I have much trouble--my father, I see, I feel, loves his s.h.i.+p better than any earthly thing; and though it would anger him to know it, yet I do wish from my heart the vessel would fade from the waters as a shadow from the green hill's side. He will never become a staid man--never set his heart on things above--never either be happy, or make me so, until no plank floats upon ocean that calls him master.

Ah me, Robin! Mistress Cecil used to say that age brought wisdom; and, if so, methinks wisdom brings sorrow."

It was some minutes before the Ranger offered any comment on her words.

At length he a.s.sured her how fully he agreed in believing that Dalton would be much more happy if his s.h.i.+p "faded," as she termed it, "from the waters; and yet," he added, "it would be as the separating of soul and body!"

"A fearful separation that would indeed be, and one I could not bear to think on. Ah, Robin! I felt death in a dream once, and once almost in reality;--and yet my dear father, he is the soul, and the s.h.i.+p the body--the worthless body that ties him to the earth!"

"And has Barbara no little fable of her own to make that come out prettily?"

"Ah, Robin! I think of fables, as you call them, as much as ever, but am not able to speak them now; so, good b'ye, Robin, and let not the promise you have made me be like the flower of the wild rock-rose, which blooms and blights within a single day. When we indeed sit together, and read and pray, remember the pledge you have now given freely to one who will labour to make you happy all the day long."

Robin again pressed his lips upon her hand, and left the chamber with feelings of deep joy and grat.i.tude that mock description. He had, however, to witness a scene of a nature very different.

The last interview between him and his mother was brief, for duties towards those who lived could scarcely yield their influence even to those which the dying claimed at his hands. The kind and affectionate heart of the Ranger was chilled as he entered the small and scantily-furnished chamber in which his mother lay, suffering in body, but still more in mind. Had her son been a ministering angel, she could not have welcomed him with greater joy, although her eyes were dim, and her voice was almost inarticulate as she pressed her shrivelled lips to his cheek.

"Raise me up, Robin--Robin--and move that chest on my right. Gently, gently, Robin; it contains much that will make you rich when I am gone.

It would have been hard if the poor widow had not her t.i.the out of those who came and went. I have sent for Mistress Cecil, but she has not come: she thinks little about the lone widow of the Crag."

"Mother," replied Robin, "her own troubles are many."

"Ah! she knows not what secrets are in the old woman's keeping. She comes not, and I have a story to tell that would be as poison to her--ay, to body and soul! You must hear it, Robin, if no one else will.

But, first, hand me a drink of the strong waters. Ah, that will put fresh life into me! Let the preachers preach their fill, nothing rouses one like the strong waters!"

Robin did as she desired, but with evident unwillingness.

"Many years have gone," she continued, "yet, to the aged, many years appear as yesterday. I was sitting by the door of this very cottage, which had just been made public--for your poor father--(honest man that he was, far above your mother in wisdom and goodness)--your poor father, I say, had been drowned the winter before, and I was obliged to do something to keep the children, and so thought of making the cottage a public; well--I sat at the door, and you were in my arms."

The aged woman's mind appeared to wander for a few moments, as if she was calling her thoughts from a long distance.

"It was night, dark, dark night, and many runagades had been about the coast all day trafficking and trading and smuggling, and the gentry helping them, for things were not strict then:--it was pitch dark, with now and then a gleam of light from a bright cloud; and there came towards me a gentleman I knew full well--a gallant, handsome gentleman: he stood upon the rock that hangs over the sea, where the sea is ever wildest. Presently some of the strange-looking men joined him, and they talked and talked, though I heard them not, for the wind was whistling around me, and I was watching you asleep."

The woman again paused, but soon resumed her story.

"Well, as I was saying, they talked; but soon I heard a cry through the storm, and the next minute there was a gleam of light--I saw him struggling; but darkness fell again, and on a sudden, while you would clap your hands, came a scream for help. O G.o.d! O G.o.d! I hear it now!--now I hear it!--Robin, another drink of the strong waters, that will silence it!"

"Mother," said the Ranger, as he held the cup which her skinny fingers were extended to grasp, while her parched lips clanked against each other impatient of moisture--"Mother, take but little for you have need of prayer; that will stifle the cry far better than this."

"And I will pray," returned the woman, "when my tale is finished. There was but that one loud, loud scream, and a heavy splash in the ocean, and with it the darkness again pa.s.sed: but, Robin Hays, Robin Hays, the men had pa.s.sed too, and one of them returned no more! And why did he not? He had broad and fair lands, such as make people cling to their own country, but he came not back. Soon after, I heard the noise of oars, and--mind your mother now, Robin,--another man came to the cliff--to the brow of the same cliff--I saw him look down, and along the waves, and, all of a sudden, a pistol flash from the boat sprang through the darkness, and he who came last stood while you could count ten, and pa.s.sed away. But mind again, Robin, he came with a weak step, and he went as a strong man."