The Buccaneer - A Tale

Tell men of high condition

That rule affairs of state,

Their purpose is ambition,

Their practice only hate;

And if they once reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell Wit how much it wrangles

In tickle points of niceness--

Tell Wisdom she entangles

Herself in over-wiseness;

And when they do reply,

Straight give them both the lie.

JOSHUA SILVESTER

Robin had, doubtless, good reasons for the hint he had given Barbara,

that she might soon again see the Buccaneer, and that she would do well

to use that forbearance towards him which she had so kindly and so

invariably practised towards the Ranger. After leaving her, as we have

stated, in safety at one of the entrances to Cecil Place, he proceeded

to the Gull's Nest. His first inquiries were concerning the boy who had

contrived to steal a passage on board the Fire-fly from France to

England, and who had pretended dumbness. How the youth got on board his

vessel, Dalton could not imagine; although, when the discovery was made,

his feigning the infirmity we have mentioned succeeded so well, that the

Buccaneer absolutely believed he could neither hear nor speak, and

sympathised with him accordingly. The indignation of Dalton was quickly

roused by the outrage described by Robin Hays: he was, moreover, much

exasperated that such a deception should have been successfully

practised on himself. Nothing is so sure to anger those who duly value

their penetration, as the knowledge that they have been duped by those

they consider inferior to themselves: indeed, the best of us are more

ready to pardon bare-faced wickedness than designing cunning;--we may

reconcile ourselves to the being overpowered by the one, but scarcely

ever to the being over-reached by the other.

Springall had quitted Cecil Place the morning after his encounter with

Major Wellmore, of whom he persisted in speaking as "the strong

spectre-man;" and neither Robin's entreaties nor Dalton's commands could

prevail on or force him again to take up his abode within the house.

"I know not why I should remain," he said; "the girls flout and laugh at

my 'sea-saw ways,' as they call them; and though Barbara is a trim

craft, well-built and rigged too, yet her quiet smile is worse to me

than the grinning of the others. I'll stay nowhere to be both frightened

and scouted: the Captain engaged me to weather the sea, not the land,

and I'd rather bear the cat a-board the Fire-fly, or even a lecture in

the good ship Providence, than be land-lagged any longer."

He was present in the room at the Gull's Nest when Robin recounted to

the Buccaneer the peril in which Barbara had been placed; and the young

sailor speedily forgot the meek jesting of the maiden in the magnitude

of her danger.