The Buccaneer - A Tale

Yet not the more

Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt

Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,

Smit with the love of sacred song.

* * * * *

Great things, and full of wonder, in our ears,

Far differing from the world, thou hast revealed,

Divine Interpreter.

MILTON

The morning that followed was rife with the sweet and balmy air and the

gay sunshine, so duly prized in our variable climate, because of the

rarity of their occurrence; more especially when the year is yet too

young to assist with vigour the energies of all-industrious nature. The

trees, in their faint greenery, looked cheerful as the face of

childhood: the merry birds were busied after their own gentle fashion

forming their dwellings in the covert and solitude of the wooded slopes

which effectually sheltered Cecil Place from the chill blast of the

neighbouring sea. The freshened breeze came so kindly through the thick

underwood, as to be scarcely felt by the early wanderers of the upland

hill or valley green. Even the rough trooper, Roupall, yielded to the

salutary influence of the morn; and as he toiled in his pedlar's guise

across the downs, which were mottled with many hundred sheep, and

pointed the pathway to King's Ferry, his heart softened within him.

Visions of his once happy home in Cumberland--of the aged parents who

fostered his infancy--of the companions of his youth, before he had

lived in sin, or dwelt with sorrow--of the innocent girl, who had loved,

though she had forsaken him--all passed before him; the retrospect

became the present; and his heart swelled painfully within him; for he

thought on what he had been, and on what he was, until, drawing his

coarse hand across his brows, he gave forth a dissolute song, seeking,

like many who ought to be wiser, to stifle conscience by tumultuous

noise.

About the same hour, our friend Robin Hays was more than usually active

in his mother's house, which we have already described, and which was

known by the name of the "Gull's Nest." The old woman had experienced

continued kindness from the few families of rank and wealth who at that

time resided in Shepey. With a good deal of tact, she managed outwardly

to steer clear of all party feuds; though people said she was by no

means so simple as she pretended; but the universal sympathy of her

neighbours was excited by her widowed and almost childless state--three

fine sons having been slain during the civil wars--and the fourth, our

acquaintance Robin, being singularly undervalued, on the ordinary

principle, we may presume, that "a prophet hath no honour in his own

country." This feeling of depreciation Robin certainly returned with

interest, indulging a most bitter, and, occasionally, biting contempt

for all the high and low in his vicinity, the family at Cecil Place

forming the only exception. Despite his defects natural and acquired, he

had, however, managed to gain the good opinion of Burrell of Burrell,

who, though, frequently on the island, possessed only a small portion of

land within its boundary. Into his service he entered for the purpose of

accompanying the knight to London as travelling-groom; and he had

rendered himself so useful while sojourning in the metropolis, that

Burrell would fain have retained him in his employ--a project, however,

to which Robin strenuously objected, the moment it was communicated to

him. "Nature," he said, "had doubtless made him a bond-slave; but he

liked her fetters so little, that he never would be slave to any one or

any thing beside." He therefore returned to the "Gull's Nest" on the

night his late master arrived at Cecil Place, from which his mother's

home was distant about three miles.