The Buccaneer - A Tale

Then leaning over the hatch-door, her rosy cheek half-resting on the

rough shoulder of her rough husband, was the pretty Mistress Maud, the

personification of rustic English beauty; then the picturesque grouping

of the old and worn, but still gallant and manly sailors--our friend of

the wooden legs a little in the fore-ground, supported by the quizzical

seaman, and a tall stiff bony-looking "Black Sal" of a woman on the

other, whose complexion was contrasted by a snow-white cap, somewhat

pointed at the top, which hardly concealed her grizzled hair. She was

both exhibiting and admiring in dumb show the telescope so lately in the

possession of our friend Robin; while Ned Purcell, a little dumpy,

grey-headed mariner, who had heretofore been considered the owner of the

best glass in Greenwich, was advancing, glass in hand, to decide which

was really the best without farther parley. As Robin was obliged to sing

his song twice, we may be excused for having given it once, though

certainly it received but little advantage from the miserable

accompaniment of the wretched instrument that had just been so gaily

adorned by the hands of Mistress Maud.

When the song was fairly finished, Robin arose to depart, for he had

been long anxious to proceed on his way, though the scene we have

described, and the conversation we have recorded, had passed within the

compass of an hour. They all pressed him to remain. Even the bluff

landlord tempted him with the offer of a pint of Canary, an offer he

would not himself under any circumstances have declined. Robin, however,

bade them a courteous farewell; but he had hardly reached the outskirts

of the village, when he heard a light step, and felt a light hand press

upon his shoulder. He turned round, and the blithe smile of mine hostess

of the Oliver's Head beamed upon his painted face.

"Robin Hays!" she said, "I would advise you never to sing when you go

mumming; you did well enough till then; but, though the nightingale hath

many notes, the voice is aye the same. The gentleman you were speering

after, dropped this while making some change in his garments; and it

looks so like a love-token, that I thought, as you were after him, you

would give it him, poor youth! and my benison with it."

"Yes," replied the Ranger, taking from her the very lock of hair which

the Cavalier had severed, with his own hand, from among the tresses of

Constantia. "I'll give it him when I can find him; yet, had you not

better wrap it up in something? It pains the heart to see such as this

exposed to the air, much less the eyes of any body in the world." Maud

wrapped it in a piece of paper, and Robin placed it carefully in a small

pocket-book.