"Ah!" said the sailor, "I doubt if the Protector could ever be brought to see the good of that; he's mortally fond of the army."
"You had some of his own Ironsides here yesterday, you said?"
"Ay, they were after something or other, I'll answer for that; for though they never go the same road twice, if they can by any means help it, yet they have been about the place, and round the neighbourhood, very much lately. I did hear that Noll was after some smuggling, or devilrie, down a little beyond Gravesend. He never can let a thing alone when once he gets scent of it."
"Was there any one, any prisoner, or chap of that sort, with them last night, or yesterday?" Robin ventured to ask.
"No, not that I saw or noticed," said the sailor.
"Yes, there was," replied the landlady, who had been leaning over the hatch-door, listening to their conversation, and scrutinising the person of her new guest. "There was a young gentleman, not like a prisoner either, only I fancied under some restraint; and I brought him a better stoup of wine than I brought the rest. Poor gentleman! he seemed downhearted, or like one crossed in love."
"Crossed in a fiddlestick!" said the bluff old landlord: "your woman's head is ever running on love."
"Then it does not run on you, I am sure," retorted Robin. "Your stick would get no music out of any fiddle."
"I could make as good music out of a currycomb, as you out of that cracked thing that sits perched on your hump—like a monkey on the back of a dromedary."
"Get your currycomb, and we'll make a wager of it," replied Robin, unslinging his gittern, while some of the old sailors crowded round the challenger, and voted it a fair challenge.