The feelings of the Buccaneer towards Robin Hays were of a very
different nature. He loved and esteemed the manikin, and valued his
ready wit and his extreme honesty. He was also gratified by the Ranger's
skill in penmanship and book-learning, and took marvellous delight in
his wild sea-songs; but, that he could look to be the husband of his
daughter, had never for a moment entered his thoughts. Now, however, the
unwelcome truth suddenly flashed upon him; there were signs and tokens
that could not mislead: the fearful agitation of the one--the evident
joy of the other--the flush that tinged her cheek, the smile that dwelt,
but for a moment, upon her pallid lip, gave such evidence of the state
of the maiden's heart, that Dalton could not waver in his opinion--could
not for an instant doubt that all his cherished plans were as autumn
leaves, sent on some especial mission through the air, when a whirlwind
raves along the earth.
To the Buccaneer it was a bitter knowledge; the joy that his daughter
was of the living, and not among the dead, was, for the time, more than
half destroyed by the certainty that she had thrown away the jewel of
her affections upon one whom, in his wrath, Dalton termed a "deformed
ape."
The Buccaneer turned from the Ranger in heavy and heart-felt
disappointment; then walked two or three times across the outward room,
and then motioned Robin Hays to follow him up the stairs, leading to the
back chamber of the small hostelry of the Gull's Nest Crag.