The Buccaneer - A Tale

"Let me alone, Jack, and don't put my back up. I'll lay my life, if

there was any concerting in it, 'twas between Robin and the maid

Barbara. Well, girls have queer fancies!--Who'd ha' thought she'd ha'

fancied Robin?--though he's a brave sound-hearted little fellow; yet

who'd ha' thought she'd have preferred him to--to----"

"To you, I suppose. Lord, Springall, there's no coming up to the women.

Bless ye, I've seen those who loved apes, and parrots, and puppy-dogs,

and took more pride and pleasure in them than in their own lawful

husbands and born children! What d'ye think o' that? Why, would you

believe it? a girl I loved better than my heart's blood took a fancy to

an old man, and sent me adrift, though I was a likely fellow then--ah!

different, very different to what I am now;" and Jack Roupall, leaning

his elbows on his knees, that were wide apart, commenced drawing, with

the butt end of his pistol, figures on the sand, which the wind, whether

in anger or sportiveness, had flung upon the crag. After a lengthened

pause, he looked suddenly up at the youth Springall, who still sat

opposite to him, and said abruptly, "Are you sure you made no mistake?"

"Am I sure of the sight of my eyes, or the hearing of my ears?" returned

the lad. "I was as close to the troopers as I am to you, though they saw

me not, and their entire talk was of the Gull's Nest, and how they were

all to be down here soon after sunrise; and a deal of jokes, in their

own way, they passed upon it--stiff dry jokes, that were as hard to

swallow as a poker."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the smuggler; "how they will pray when they see the

crag dancing in the air! It would be ill done towards the secret

stations of our friends on other parts of the coast, to let these

fellows find the ins and outs of such a place as this; it would be

holding a candle to the devil--giving them a guide to lead them on

through all their plans henceforward and for ever. The Gull's Nest shall

go after the Fire-fly. It gives me joy to mar their sport--their peeping

and prying. But we will not let off the train until we see them pretty

close upon us. The Roundhead rascals shall have the full benefit of our

gay bonfire. 'Ods rot it! what else could we do, but make a gay ending

of it at once. A gay ending!" he repeated--"a gay ending! No rock to

mark the spot of so much merriment, so much joviality, so much spoil!

Ah! in a hundred years, few can tell where the watchers of the Gull's

Nest Crag lighted beacon and brand for the free rovers of the free sea!"