When all the riches of the globe beside
Flow'd in to thee with every tide;
When all that nature did thy soil deny,
The growth was of thy fruitful industry;
When all the proud and dreadful sea,
And all his tributary streams,
A constant tribute paid to thee,
Extended Thames.
COWLEY
The country through which Robin travelled on his journey to London
presented an aspect very different from that which it now assumes.
Blackheath was noted for highwaymen; and there was a fair and reasonable
chance of being robbed and murdered between Greenwich and London. The
Ranger never paused from the time he set out until he found himself
under a portion of the long brick-wall that still divides the richly
ornamented park from the arid and unfertilised heath. He sat down
beneath its shadow, and regaled himself with a morsel of ship-biscuit
and a mouthful of brandy; then undid the fastening of his wallet, and
selected from amid its contents a neatly and skilfully made hump, which,
having previously removed his coat, he dexterously transferred to his
shoulder, and then donned a jacket into which the hump fitted with
extraordinary exactness. He next drew from his bosom a small hand-glass,
and painted and dyed his face with different preparations, so that even
Barbara would have failed to recognise her friend and admirer. Having
placed a patch over one eye, and stuck a chin-tuft of black hair under
his lip, he seemed satisfied with his appearance, replaced the glass and
sundry other things in his sack, then, with his usual agility, mounted
one of the overhanging trees, and concealed it amid the branches. As he
resumed his journey, he might have been taken for a gipsy minstrel, for
suspended round his neck was a small cracked gittern, retaining only two
strings. This, as if in mockery of his assumed misfortune, he had rested
on the hump, while the riband, which was of bright scarlet, encircled,
like a necklace, his swarthy neck, that was partially uncovered. In his
steeple-crowned hat was stuck a peacock's feather; and any passenger
would have been puzzled to ascertain whether the motley deformed being
was a wit or a fool.
"Now"--thus ran his thoughts--"Now do I defy any of the serving-men at
Whitehall to recognise their play-fellow, Sir Willmott Burrell's valet,
in the gipsy-looking rascal into which I have, of myself, manufactured
myself! Verily, Robin, thou art a most ingenious fellow! Apt at
contrivances--even nature is thy debtor, for thou hast increased her
deformity! I could gain no tidings of the Cavalier in my own proper
person--of that I am certain; because the people there will either not
know, or be so effectually cautioned--there would be no use in fishing
in such water. Ah! your heart's blood Puritans will never defile
themselves by questioning such as me. 'Slife, I think Old Noll himself
could hardly make me out! I wonder what would Barbara say now, if she
were to behold me in this disguise! I should not like her to see me, and
that's the truth; for no man likes to look worse than he is to his
mistress, and, the devil knows, I can ill spare my beauty! My beauty!"
he thought again, and then chuckled one of his vile laughs, the most
decided indicators of a scornful and bitter temper.