The Buccaneer - A Tale

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.