The Buccaneer - A Tale

"I can't say that he did."

"I am sure he has had opportunities enough."

"I'm not going to deny that Hugh's a fine fellow, Robin; but I remember,

long ago, ay, thirteen or fourteen years past, before he entered on the

regular buccaneering trade, there wasn't a firmer Cavalier amongst the

whole of us Kentish men. Blazes! how he fought at Marston! But a few

years' sunning off the hot Havannah either scorches the spirit out of a

man, or burns it in."

"And what reason have you to think that Hugh is not now a good

Cavalier?"

"Pshaw! he grows old, and it's no good trying to pull Oliver down. He's

charmed. Ay, you may laugh; but no one of us could have escaped the

bullet of Miles Syndercomb, to say nothing of dark John Talbot:--I tell

ye, he is spell-guarded. Hugh is a knowing one, and has some plan

a-foot, or he wouldn't keep beating about this coast as he does, after

being so long from it, and using every county but Sussex and Kent. I

wonder, too, what placed you, Master Robin, in Burrell of Burrell's

service: I thought you were a man of taste till then."

Robin again grinned; and, as his wide mouth literally extended from ear

to ear, his face looked, as it were, divided by some accident; so

separate did the chin appear from the upper portion of the countenance.

"If you wo'n't talk," growled out the trooper, "I hope you will pay

those who do so for your amusement."

"Thou wouldst have me believe, then, thou art no genuine disinterested

talker. Ah! Roupall, Roupall! acquaintance with courts has taught me,

that nature in the first place, and society in the second, have imposed

upon us mortals two most disagreeable necessities: the one is that of

eating; the other, that of talking. Now nature is a tyrant, and society

is a tyrant; and I, being a tyrant-hater----"

"'Slife, man--or mongrel--or whatever you choose to call your twisted

carcass," interrupted Roupall, angrily, "hold your jibber. I wonder Joan

Cromwell did not seize upon you, and keep you as her chief ape, while

you were making your courtly acquaintance. A pretty figure for courts,

truly!--ah! ah! ah!" As he laughed, he pointed his finger scornfully

towards Robin Hays, who, however little he might care to jest upon his

own deformity, was but ill inclined to tolerate those who even hinted at

his defects. As the trooper persevered, his victim grew pale and

trembled with suppressed rage. The man perceived the effect his cruel

mockery produced, and continued to revile and take to pieces the

mis-shapen portions of his body with most merciless anatomy. Robin

offered, in return, neither observation nor reproach;--at first

trembling and change of colour were the only indications of his

feelings--then he moved restlessly on his seat, and his bright and

deeply sunken eyes gleamed with untamable malignity; but, as Roupall

followed one jeer more brutal than the rest, with a still more

boisterous laugh, and, in the very rapture of his success, threw himself

back in his chair, the tiger spirit of Robin burst forth to its full

extent: he sprang upon the trooper so suddenly, that the Goliath was

perfectly conquered, and lay upon the floor helpless as an overgrown and

overfed Newfoundland dog, upon whose throat a sharp and bitter terrier

has fastened. At length, after much exertion, he succeeded in standing

erect against the wall of the apartment, though still unable to

disengage Robin's long arms and bony fingers from his throat, where he

hung like a mill-stone: it was some minutes ere the gigantic man had

power to throw from him the attenuated being whom, on ordinary

occasions, he could have lifted between his finger and thumb.