The Buccaneer - A Tale

The feelings of the Buccaneer towards Robin Hays were of a very

different nature. He loved and esteemed the manikin, and valued his

ready wit and his extreme honesty. He was also gratified by the Ranger's

skill in penmanship and book-learning, and took marvellous delight in

his wild sea-songs; but, that he could look to be the husband of his

daughter, had never for a moment entered his thoughts. Now, however, the

unwelcome truth suddenly flashed upon him; there were signs and tokens

that could not mislead: the fearful agitation of the one--the evident

joy of the other--the flush that tinged her cheek, the smile that dwelt,

but for a moment, upon her pallid lip, gave such evidence of the state

of the maiden's heart, that Dalton could not waver in his opinion--could

not for an instant doubt that all his cherished plans were as autumn

leaves, sent on some especial mission through the air, when a whirlwind

raves along the earth.

To the Buccaneer it was a bitter knowledge; the joy that his daughter

was of the living, and not among the dead, was, for the time, more than

half destroyed by the certainty that she had thrown away the jewel of

her affections upon one whom, in his wrath, Dalton termed a "deformed

ape."

The Buccaneer turned from the Ranger in heavy and heart-felt

disappointment; then walked two or three times across the outward room,

and then motioned Robin Hays to follow him up the stairs, leading to the

back chamber of the small hostelry of the Gull's Nest Crag.