“Madam, you make me feel quite sorry for him,” the lieutenant exclaimed, as she began to cry, “If even one of my little ones was drowned, I declare to you, I can not tell what I should be like. And to lose them all at once, and as his own wife perhaps would say, because he was thinking of his breakfast! And when he had been robbed, and the world all gone against him! Madam, it is a long time, thank God, since I heard so sad a tale.”
“Now you would not, captain, I am sure you would not,” said Mistress Anerley, getting up a smile, yet freshening his perception of a tear as well—“you would never have the heart to destroy that poor old couple by striking the last prop from under them. By the will of the Lord they are broken down enough. They are quietly hobbling to their graves, and would you be the man to come and knock them on their heads at once?”
“Mistress Anerley, have you ever heard that I am a brute and inhuman? Madam, I have no less than seven children, and I hope to have fourteen.”
“I hope with all my heart you may. And you will deserve them all, for promising so very kindly not to shoot poor Robin Lyth.”
“Robin Lyth! I never spoke of him, madam. He is outlawed, condemned, with a fine reward upon him. We shot at him to-day; we shall shoot at him again; and before very long we must hit him. Ma'am, it is my duty to the king, the Constitution, the service I belong to, and the babes I have begotten.”
“Blood-money poisons all innocent mouths, Sir, and breaks out for generations. And for it you will have to take three lives—Robin's, the captain's, and my dear old cousin Joan's.”
“Mistress Anerley, you deprive me of all satisfaction. It is just my luck, when my duty was so plain, and would pay so well for doing of.”
“Listen now, captain. It is my opinion, and I am generally borne out by the end, that instead of a hundred pounds for killing Robin Lyth, you may get a thousand for preserving him alive. Do you know how he came upon this coast, and how he has won his extraordinary name?”
“I have certainly heard rumors; scarcely any two alike. But I took no heed of them. My duty was to catch him; and it mattered not a straw to me who or what he was. But now I must really beg to know all about him, and what makes you think such things of him. Why should that excellent old couple hang upon him? and what can make him worth such a quantity of money? Honestly, of course, I mean; honestly worth it, ma'am, without any cheating of his Majesty.”
“Captain Carroway,” his hostess said, not without a little blush, as she thought of the king and his revenue, “cheating of his Majesty is a thing we leave for others. But if you wish to hear the story of that young man, so far as known, which is not so even in Flamborough, you must please to come on Sunday, Sir; for Sunday is the only day that I can spare for clacking, as the common people say. I must be off now; I have fifty things to see to. And on Sunday my master has his best things on, and loves no better than to sit with his legs up, and a long clay pipe lying on him down below his waist (or, to speak more correctly, where it used to be, as he might, indeed, almost say the very same to me), and then not to speak a word, but hear other folk tell stories, that might not have made such a dinner as himself. And as for dinner, Sir, if you will do the honor to dine with them that are no more than in the Volunteers, a saddle of good mutton fit for the Body-Guards to ride upon, the men with the skins around them all turned up, will be ready just at one o'clock, if the parson lets us out.”