"A proud man well may our captain be,
The sea, the sea, the sea!
But our noble ship a bride shall be
To five hundred men as good as he.
Oh, the sea, the sea, the sea—
'Tis a fitting mate for the brave and free!
"Give the land to slaves, but give us the sea—
The sea, the sea, the sea!
Our hopes, our joys, our bed, and our grave,
Are above or below the salt-sea wave.
Oh, the sea, the sea, the sea—
Hurrah for the sailor's home—the sea!"
Then leaning over the hatch-door, her rosy cheek half-resting on the rough shoulder of her rough husband, was the pretty Mistress Maud, the personification of rustic English beauty; then the picturesque grouping of the old and worn, but still gallant and manly sailors—our friend of the wooden legs a little in the fore-ground, supported by the quizzical seaman, and a tall stiff bony-looking "Black Sal" of a woman on the other, whose complexion was contrasted by a snow-white cap, somewhat pointed at the top, which hardly concealed her grizzled hair. She was both exhibiting and admiring in dumb show the telescope so lately in the possession of our friend Robin; while Ned Purcell, a little dumpy, grey-headed mariner, who had heretofore been considered the owner of the best glass in Greenwich, was advancing, glass in hand, to decide which was really the best without farther parley. As Robin was obliged to sing his song twice, we may be excused for having given it once, though certainly it received but little advantage from the miserable accompaniment of the wretched instrument that had just been so gaily adorned by the hands of Mistress Maud.
When the song was fairly finished, Robin arose to depart, for he had been long anxious to proceed on his way, though the scene we have described, and the conversation we have recorded, had passed within the compass of an hour. They all pressed him to remain. Even the bluff landlord tempted him with the offer of a pint of Canary, an offer he would not himself under any circumstances have declined. Robin, however, bade them a courteous farewell; but he had hardly reached the outskirts of the village, when he heard a light step, and felt a light hand press upon his shoulder. He turned round, and the blithe smile of mine hostess of the Oliver's Head beamed upon his painted face.
"Robin Hays!" she said, "I would advise you never to sing when you go mumming; you did well enough till then; but, though the nightingale hath many notes, the voice is aye the same. The gentleman you were speering after, dropped this while making some change in his garments; and it looks so like a love-token, that I thought, as you were after him, you would give it him, poor youth! and my benison with it."
"Yes," replied the Ranger, taking from her the very lock of hair which the Cavalier had severed, with his own hand, from among the tresses of Constantia. "I'll give it him when I can find him; yet, had you not better wrap it up in something? It pains the heart to see such as this exposed to the air, much less the eyes of any body in the world." Maud wrapped it in a piece of paper, and Robin placed it carefully in a small pocket-book.
"The devil's as bright in your eyes still, Maud, as it was when you won poor Jack Roupall's heart, and then jilted him for a rich husband. I did not think any one would have found me out."
"If I did sell myself," replied the landlady, "I have had my reward"—the colour faded from her cheek as she spoke—"as all will have who go the same gait. But ye ken, Bobby, it was not for my ain sake, but that my poor mother might have a home in her auld age—and so she had, and sure that ought to make me content." The tears gathered in her eyes, and the Ranger loudly reproached himself for unkindness, and assured her he meant no harm.
"I am sure o' that; but when any one evens Jack to me, it brings back the thought of my ain North to my heart, and its words to my tongue, which is no good now, as it becomes me to forget both."
"God bless you, Maud!" said Robin, shaking her affectionately by the hand: "God bless you! and if any ask after the Ironsides, see you say nothing of the young gentleman, who is as dear to me as my heart's blood; and do not tell to any, even of our own set, that I passed this way; for it's hard to tell who's who, or what's what, these times."