"You quarrel with our young king's morality?"
"I'faith, I do!—though you will say it's ill coming from me to fault any man's conduct; but I hate your little vices as much as your little virtues: sickly, puny goods and evils, that are too weak for sun to ripen, too low for blast to break, but which endure, the same withered, sapless things, to the death-day—Augh! a bold villain, or a real downright good man, for my money. How the devil can Charles Stuart do any thing great, or think of any thing great, with his mistresses and his dogs, his gaming and——Why, it is hardly a year since I took off from Dover that poor Lucy Barton and her brat, after the poor thing suffering imprisonment in the Tower for his sake!"
"The child's a noble child," said Walter; "but the mother's a sad reprobate, swears and drinks like a trooper."
"My mother is a woman," exclaimed little Robin, with great gravity, poising a mutton-bone between his fingers, to arrive at which Crisp was making extraordinary efforts,—"and I can't deny that I've a sort of love, though it be a love without hope, for a very pretty girl, a woman also: now this being the case, I'm not fond of hearing women reflected on; for when they're young, they're the delight of our eyes; and when they're old, they're useful, though a trifle crabbed, but still useful; and a house without a woman would be like—like——"
"Robin at fault!" said Dalton: "you've given me many a comparison, and now I'll lend you one—a bell without a clapper; won't that do, Robin?" Robin shook his head.—"Ay, Robin! Robin! you're right, after all. If it were not for a woman, I'd never set foot on shore again: but I'm proud of my little Barbara; and all the fine things you tell me of her, Robin, make me still prouder;—her mother all over. I often think how happy I shall be to call her daughter, when she won't be ashamed to own me: God help me!"—and be it noted that Dalton crossed himself as he spoke—"God help me! I often think that if ever I gain salvation, it will be through the prayers of that girl. Would that she had been brought up in her mother's way!"
"What would old Noll say to that papistical sign, master?" inquired Robin.
"A plague on you and old Noll too! I never get a bit up towards heaven, that something doesn't pull me back again."
"I'll send you up in a moment," said Robin, in a kind voice. "Your daughter, Barbara——"
"Ay, that it is, that it is," muttered the Buccaneer; "my own, own child!—the child of one who, I bless God, never lived to know that she wedded (for I wedded her in holy church, at Dominica) a wild and wicked rover. Our love was sudden and hot, as the sun under which we lived; and I never left her but once from the time we became one. I had arranged all, given up my ship and cargo,—and it was indeed a cargo of crimes—at least, I thought so then. It was before the civil wars; or I had again returned to England, or traded, no matter how. I flew to her dwelling, with a light heart and a light step. What there? My wife,—she who had hung so fondly round my neck and implored me not to leave her,—was stretched on a low bamboo bed—dead, sir—dead! I might have known it before I entered, had I but remembered that she knew my step on the smooth walk, fell it ever so lightly, and would have met me—but for death! And there too sat a black she-devil, stuffing my infant's mouth with their vile food. I believe the hag thought I was mad; for I caught the child in my arms, held it to my heart while I bent over my wife's body, and kissed her cold, unreturning—for the first time unreturning—lips; then flung myself out of the accursed place,—ran with my burden to the shipowners, who had parted with me most grudgingly,—and was scudding before the wind in less than twelve hours, more at war with my own species than ever, and panting for something to wreak my hatred on. At first I wished the infant dead, for I saw her pining away; but at last, when she came to know me, and lift up her innocent hands to my face—I may confess it here—many and many a night have I sat in my cabin looking on that sleeping child, till my eyes swam in a more bitter brine than was ever brewed in the Atlantic. Particular circumstances obliged me to part with her, and I have never regretted her being with poor Lady Cecil—only I should have liked her to pray as her mother did. Not that I suppose it will make any difference at the wind-up,—if," he added, doubtingly, "there be indeed any wind-up. Hugh Dalton will never be really himself till he can look that angel girl straight in the face, and ask her to pray for him, as her mother used." Dalton was too much affected to continue, and both his auditors respected his feelings too much to speak. At length he said, "But this gloom will never do. Come, Robin, give us a song, and let it not be one of your sad ones."
Robin sung,—