"I will tell my lady how my mother loved you, and then she will know you cannot be the wild man we took you for."
"Tell her nothing, sweet, about me. In a little time I shall be able to take you to a proper home; only mark this, you must never go to the home of Sir Willmott Burrell."
"Ah! he is very wicked, I have heard; and yet you see how wrong it is to believe evil of any one; but I know that he is evil, if ever man was," was the maid's reply, reverting almost unconsciously to her father's situation.
"Let us talk of nothing evil, Barbara, during the few moments I can remain with you now. Remember, you are to tell your lady nothing about me."
"I do not see how I can help it."
"Why?"
"Because she has ever told me to tell her all things, and I have obeyed. Ah, sir—father, you know not how good she is to me, and how she cries, dear lady! Ever since this marriage has been fixed upon, she has wept unceasingly."
The Buccaneer felt at the moment as all parents must feel who desire to preserve their children in innocence, and yet themselves lead vicious lives. To the wicked, lies are as necessary as the air they breathe, as common for use as household stuff. Had Barbara been what is now termed a clever girl, the Buccaneer might have employed her, not as an agent of falsehood—that his delicate love of his child would have prevented—but as an instrument, perhaps, to work some delay in a wedding that humanity, independent of one or two new and latent causes, called upon him to prevent; but in any plot where finesse was necessary, he saw that Barbara would be perfectly useless; and before taking his departure, he only told her she might, if she pleased, inform Mistress Cecil, but at the same time begged of her not to repeat to any one else that he had been there. This Barbara promised to do; and on the assurance that he would soon return, and enable her to show her lady that, instead of being the wild man they both took him for, he was a very peaceable (how the Buccaneer smiled at the word!) person, she suffered him to depart, and then went into her little room, to arrange her ideas, and mingle thanksgivings that she had found a father, with prayers for his safety.