"Good! good! good!" exclaimed Robin with manifest delight, chuckling and
rubbing his hands, "that was good! How it warms my heart when an
honest subject speaks to a king as man to man, feeling he has no cause
to dread his frown or court his smile. Brave! brave, Sir Walter! There
is a moral dignity, a fearlessness in truth, that makes one not
tread--not tread, mind ye, but spurn the earth he walks upon. If we
would not be of the earth, earthy, but of the heavens, heavenly, we must
be independent in thought and action! Brave, brave Sir Walter!"
"Master Robin," said the captain, looking earnestly in his countenance,
and half-inclined to smile at his enthusiasm--"Master Robin, that's
not the court fashion."
"D--n the court!" shouted the Ranger; then suddenly checking himself, he
added, turning to his wife, whose return he had not heeded,--"I beg your
pardon, my dear Barbara,--it was his fault, not mine. Nay, I have said
nothing half so wicked this long, long time. Come, tell me, did you see
Sir Walter's children, Captain? Oliver, he is the first-born, a noble
boy? Then,--I forget their names; but I know there is neither a Herbert
nor a Robert among them. Alas! there are good reasons why it should so
be. I think Richard Cromwell stood godfather to the eldest."
"Richard Cromwell!" repeated Springall, in a tone of contempt.
"He was wise, though; he felt that he had not his father's talents,
consequently could not maintain his father's power," observed Robin.
"Master Hays," inquired Springall, wisely avoiding any topic likely to
excite political difference, "you are an oracle, and can tell me what
has become of my worthy friend, that most excellent compounder of
confections, Solomon Grundy?"
"Poor Solomon!" replied Robin, "he accompanied the family after Sir
Robert's death,--which was lingering enough, to set forth more brightly
the virtues of both daughter and nephew,--to London, and was choked by
devouring too hastily a French prawn! Poor Solomon! it was as natural
for him so to die as for a soldier to fall on the field of battle."
"So it was," replied the seaman; "but having discussed the events and
the persons with whom we had most to do in past years, let us, before
entering on other subjects, fill a bumper to the health of my long
cherished, and, despite his faults, my trusty beloved friend--the OLD
BUCCANEER! Much has he occupied my thoughts, and it joys me to find him,
and leave him, where an old man ought to be--in the bosom of his true
and beautiful family. We have all faults," continued the officer,
somewhat moved by the good sherris and his own good feeling--"for it's a
well-written log that has no blots; but hang it, as I said before, I
never could spin a yarn like my friend Robin here, either from the
wheel, which I mean to typify the head--or the distaff, which, be it
understood, signifies the heart: So here goes--" and, with a trembling
hand, and a sparkling eye, the generous Springall drained the deep
tankard, to the health of his first sea friend.