It was not long after the preacher's second imprisonment, that Robin Hays might have been seen, treading the outward mazes of the cliff, and, without pausing at his mother's dwelling, approaching the spot where, on a former occasion, Burrell had received the signal for entrance from Hugh Dalton. He was ignorant of his mother's illness; but the information that Jack Roupall unwittingly communicated was not lost upon him; and he had earnestly scanned the waters, to see if the Fire-fly were off the coast. Though the gallant sparkling ship hardly hoisted the same colours twice in the same week, and though she had as many false figure-heads as there are days in January, yet Robin thought he never could be deceived in her appearance, and he saw at once, that though there were many ships in the offing, she certainly was not within sight of land. The feeling that he should look on Barbara no more was another source of agony to the unhappy Ranger. Yet he could hardly believe that the Buccaneer would so soon part with the beautiful form of a child he so dearly loved. He struck his own peculiar signal against the rock, and it was quickly answered by the Skipper himself, who extended his hand towards his friend with every demonstration of joy. Robin started at seeing the Buccaneer in so cheerful a mood, and was endeavouring to speak, when the other prevented his words from coming forth, by placing his hand on his lips. The Ranger's head grew dizzy—his knees smote against each other, and he gazed on Dalton's countenance, eager to ascertain if there was a possibility of hope, or if excess of grief had deranged his intellect.
"Silence! silence! silence!" repeated the Buccaneer, in the subdued voice of a puny girl; and Robin thought his eye glared wildly as he spoke.
"Where—where is she?" muttered Robin, leaning for support against a projecting stone, that served as one of the slides for the rough, but skilfully-managed doorway—his heart panting with anxiety to behold, and yet dreading to look upon the form of the dead Barbara. The Buccaneer pointed to where the skins had hung when Fleetword was in the chamber, and the Ranger attempted to move towards it; but his feet were as if rooted to the earth. Dalton watched his agitation with a curious eye; yet Robin perceived it not. He made several ineffectual attempts to stir from his position; but continued fixed in the same spot, unable to withdraw his gaze from the opening. At length the blood circulated more freely in his veins, his chest heaved, as if the exertion of breathing was an effort he could not long continue; and he staggered, as a drunken man, towards the entrance. The uncertainty of his step was such that he would have fallen into the chamber, had not the Buccaneer seized him within his powerful grasp, on the threshold of the inner chamber, and silently directed his attention towards a pile of cushions, covered with a variety of coloured silks and furs, on which lay a form he could not mistake. The hair, divested of its usual cap, rested in shadowy masses on the throat and bosom, and the light of the small lamp fell upon a cheek and brow white as monumental marble. By the side of this rude, yet luxurious couch, crouched another female, holding a fan, or rather a mass of superb ostrich feathers, which she moved slowly to and fro, so as to create a current of air within the cell. It contained one other inmate—the little and ugly Crisp—lying, coiled up, at the foot of the cushions, his nose resting between his small, rough paws; his eyes fixed upon his master, to hail whom he sprang not forward, as was his custom, with a right joyful and doggish salutation, but, mutely and quietly, wagged his dwarfish tail—so gently, that it would not have brushed off the down from a butterfly's wing.
Robin grasped his hands convulsively together—shook back the hair that curled over his forehead, as if it prevented his seeing clearly—his breathing became still more painfully distinct—large drops of moisture burst upon his brow—his tongue moved, but he could utter no sound—his under lip worked in fearful convulsion—and, despite Dalton's efforts to restrain him, he sprang to the side of the couch with the bound of a red deer, and falling on his knees, succeeded in exclaiming,—
"She lives! she lives!"
The sweet sleeper at once awoke; the long dark lashes separated, and the mild hazel eye of Barbara turned once more upon Robin Hays; a weak smile separated lips that were as white as the teeth they sheltered, as she extended her hand towards the Ranger. But, as if the effort was too much, her eyes again closed; and she would have looked as if asleep in death, but that Robin kissed her hand with a respectful feeling that would have done honour to men of higher breeding. The maiden blood tinged her cheek with a pale and gentle colour—the hue that tints the inner leaves of a blush rose.
The Buccaneer had been a silent spectator of this scene, and it had taught him a new lesson—one, too, not without its bitterness. When Robin, with more discretion than could have been expected from him, silently withdrew into the outer room, he beheld Dalton standing in an attitude of deep and painful thought near its furthermost entrance. As the Ranger approached, his heart swelling with an overflowing of joy and gratitude—his head reeling with sensations so new, so undefinable, that he doubted if the air he breathed, the earth he trod on, was the same as it had been but an hour, a moment before—yet suffering still from previous agony, and receiving back Barbara as an offering from the grave, that might have closed over her;—as the Ranger approached the Buccaneer, in a frame of mind which it is utterly impossible to define, Dalton threw upon him a look so full of contempt, as he glanced over his diminutive and disproportioned form, that Robin never could have forgotten it, had it not passed unnoticed in the deep feeling of joy and thankfulness that possessed his whole soul. He seized the Skipper's hand with a warmth and energy of feeling that moved his friend again towards him. The generous heart is rarely indifferent to the generous-hearted. Dalton gave back the pressure, although he turned away the next moment with a heavy sigh.
Ah! it is a common error with men to believe that women value beauty as much as it is valued by themselves. Such a feeling as that his daughter entertained for Robin Hays, Dalton, even in his later years, could no more understand than an eagle can comprehend the quiet affection of the cooing ring-dove for its partner: the one would glory in sailing with his mate in the light of the tropical sun, would scream with her over the agonies of a dying fawn, and dip the beaks of their callow young in blood; the other, nested in some gentle dell, the green turf beneath watered by a brook, rippling its cadences to his sweet, though monotonous, melody—would peel for his companion the husk from the ripening corn, and shadow his brood from the noonday heat. Yet the love of both is perfect, according to its kind.
The time had been when, as Hugh Dalton walked on the deck of his bright Fire-fly, and counted the stars, guided the helm, or watched the clouds flitting past the disk of the silver moon, he thought that, if his pardon were granted, and he could bestow his ship upon one in the beauty and prime of manhood, who would take Barbara to his bosom, and call her by the hallowed name of "wife," he could lay his head upon his pillow, and die in peace, the grandsire of a race of sons, who would carry the name of Dalton honourably over the waves of many lands. He had never, in all his adventures, met with a youth who had gained so much upon his affections as the lad Springall. He knew him to be brave and honest, of a frank and generous nature, well calculated to win the heart of any maiden; and he had arranged for the youth's temporary residence at Cecil Place, at a time when he knew the baronet could not refuse aught that he demanded, with a view to forward a long-cherished design.
"Barbara will see, and, I am sure, love him," quoth Dalton to himself: "how can it be otherwise? Matters may change ere long, and, if they do——. His family is of an old Kentish stock, well known for their loyalty, which, in truth, made the boy quit the canting ship, the Providence, when he met with a fitting opportunity. She cannot choose but love him; and even if, at the end of ten or twenty years, he should turn out a gentleman, he'll never scorn her then; for, faith, he could not; she is too like her mother to be slighted of mortal man!" And so he dreamed, and fancied, as scores of fathers have done before and since, that all things were going on rightly. When Springall held occasional communication with him, he never saw him tread the deck without mentally exclaiming, "What a brave skipper that boy will make! He has the very gait of a commander: the step free, yet careless; the voice clear as a warning bell; the eye keen, and as strong as an eagle's." Then he would look upon his ship, and, apostrophising her as a parent would a fondling child, continue,—