It was Lady Frances Cromwell.

"My dear Constantia! here's a situation! I never knew any thing so provoking, so tantalising! My father, they say, has taken as many as twenty prisoners, of one sort or another; and has caged them up in that purple-room with himself, examining into and searching out every secret—secrets I want so much to know. He has got the Buccaneer, they say."

"Who says so?" inquired Constance eagerly.

"Why, everybody. Maud says so. And I have been to the door at least ten times; but even the key-hole, I verily believe, is plugged. I am sure it is, for I tried hard to see through it."

"The crisis of my fate is indeed come," murmured Constantia. Then, after a pause, she was about to address her friend: "My dear Lady Frances—"

"Don't Lady Frances me," interrupted the young maiden, pettishly. "I hate to be Lady Frances. I should know more about every thing if I were a chamberlain's daughter."

"Your father can discover nought to your prejudice. I confess I both dread and hope to hear news of the Gull's Nest. There is nothing which can affect you there."

"How can I tell? Poor Rich chooses queer postmen sometimes! And that Manasseh Ben Israel! he is as anxious as myself to know what is going on. Two rooms locked up! Constance, I wonder you have not more spirit than to submit to such proceedings. I would not."

"I am sorry for it; because it shows that your confidence in your father is overbalanced by your curiosity."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed the lady, turning from her friend, just in time to see the doors at the bottom of the room thrown open with much ceremony:—the Protector, attended by his pages, followed by Dalton, Fleetword, and Robin, entered.

Constance rose respectfully from her seat, glanced upon the form of the fearful Buccaneer who now stood before her, and laying her hand on the arm of her friend, would have withdrawn, had not Cromwell commanded her to stay.

"Mistress Cecil, you will remain;—both remain," he said, while an expression of exceeding kindness lent to his harsh countenance the effect that sunlight gives to a rugged landscape, softening without destroying a single point of its peculiar and stern character. "I have no dread of objection on the part of the Lady Frances, and I must request your presence." He took a large chair at the head of the table, and seating himself, delivered a slip of writing to his page, who immediately quitted the room.

"Our young friend will pardon this intrusion upon her privacy, and moreover allow us to continue an investigation that has already been attended with much pain, but we should hope with some satisfaction also."

As he spoke, the door again opened, and Manasseh Ben Israel, pale and trembling with agitation, walked, or rather, so submissive was his attitude, crept forward, saluting the Protector and the ladies as he advanced.

"Will your Highness permit?" inquired Constantia, rising from her own seat, and pushing it towards the Rabbi.

"Most certainly," was Cromwell's prompt reply; "our friend is aged, but he is welcome; and we have news that will gladden his heart." In an instant all trace of the servility which custom had imposed upon the manners of the children of Israel vanished. The Rabbi stood upright, and clasping his hands together, exclaimed, "My child! my child!"

"The lost sheep is found—blessed be the Lord!—safe here, within this house—and I lay my commands upon her father that she be received as a stray lamb from the fold, and warmed within his bosom. We have all children, good Rabbi; and the Lord judge between us and them, they are stiffnecked and stubborn! All, more or less, all—except one or two who shine forth as bright examples;—such is my own Elizabeth, and such also is Mistress Constantia here."

"She is found!" repeated the Jew; "but they talked of crime—of her having—I cannot speak it, please your Highness, but you know what I would say. Peradventure gold might be made to atone."

"Peace, good friend!" interrupted Oliver sternly; "justice must have its due; and, by God's blessing, while we are Protector, all the gold your tribe is worth shall not turn the scale! We would be merciful for mercy's sake; but for justice—Yet pardon me," he added in compassion to the Rabbi's horror, "I would not trifle with a father's feelings—she is guiltless of murder."

He struck the table with the butt-end of his pistol—a private door of the library opened as of itself—not one, but two females stood beneath its shadow, each supporting each, as if the one weak creature thought she could lend a portion of much needed strength to the other. Lady Frances and Constantia sprang from their seats—all distinction of rank was forgotten, and Mistress Cecil wept over her affectionate bower-maiden, as an elder over a younger sister, or even as a mother over a beloved child. She asked no questions, but kissed her brow and wept; while Barbara stood curtseying, and smiling, and crying, and glancing with evident satisfaction, amid her tears, towards her father and Robin, as if she would have said, "See how my lady, my grand lady, loves me!"

It did not escape the observation of Lady Frances that Barbara wore the chain she had given her, and she most heartily wished her father at Whitehall, or elsewhere, that she might have an opportunity of asking all the questions at once suggested by her busy brain.

It is impossible to convey an adequate idea of the meeting between the Jew and his daughter. It was with feelings of terror, more than of affection, that Zillah prepared to encounter a justly offended parent. She had heard and believed that crime such as hers—marrying or intriguing with Christians—was punished by a lingering and cruel death; and scarcely could the word of Cromwell, pledged twice for her safety, convince her that such would not be her fate. She instantly prostrated herself at the Rabbi's feet; and it would seem that, assured of his daughter's life—assured of her safety under laws—British laws—his eastern notions with regard to the submission due from woman to her master, man, returned to him in full force; for he suffered her to remain, her forehead resting on the ground, and her hands clasped around it, although he was so deeply agitated that he clung to a pedestal for support.

The Protector arose from his seat, and, advancing, kindly and tenderly raised the poor victim of confiding but too violent passion, and placed her leaning on her father's shoulder.

"Manasseh!" he said, "at times our speech is obscure, and men see through it darkly. We hope it will not be so now. Your daughter is no harlot, but a wedded woman who will soon become a mother, and, in virtue of her husband and her child, is a subject of our own. We regret the violence of which she has been guilty, but Satan is ever busy in his work of temptation. If you cast her from you, we take her to ourselves; as our blessed Lord would have received the prodigal—the sinful, but repentant son—even so will we receive her. Poor prodigal," he added, after waiting for a reply from the Rabbi, which came not, for the feelings of the tribe were struggling with those of the father—"Poor prodigal! we will not desert thee in thy hour of trial—but seek to preserve thee from worse crimes than even those of which thou hast been guilty."

Although Cromwell had placed Zillah resting on the shoulder of her father, he made no effort to support or keep her there, and the Protector was in the act of leading her towards his daughter, when Ben Israel raised a great cry, for the father had triumphed over the Jew, and snatching her to his bosom, he burst into a fervent but almost inaudible prayer of thanksgiving and gratitude, that entered the hearts of those who heard it, and witnessed the terrible strength of his emotions. The Lady Constance was suffering from various causes; the nature of which, from past events, may be more easily imagined than described. Nor were those sufferings either terminated or relieved, when, on Cromwell's striking the table again in the same manner as before, Sir Willmott Burrell stood in the apartment.

His entrance caused a sensation of astonishment and confusion through the whole group. Constantia Cecil unconsciously moved her seat nearer to that of the Protector. An expression of satisfaction crossed the anxious and feverish brow of Robin Hays. Dalton folded his arms across his bosom, and advanced his right foot, as if strengthening his position. Preacher Fleetword, who had hitherto leaned against a high-backed chair, his eyes glaring from their sockets on the countenance of "the Lord's anointed," and drinking in, with open ear and mouth, every word he uttered—now shrank into the farthest portion of the room, skilfully keeping a chair in the direction of Burrell, as a sort of fortification against violence or evil, while he muttered sentences of no gentle or complimentary nature, which, but for the august presence in which he stood, would have burst forth in anathemas against the "wolf in sheep's clothing," by which title he never failed in after years to designate the traitor. The Jew trembled, and partly rose from his seat; while Zillah, whose love had turned to hate—whose affection had become as wormwood—stood erect as he advanced, with a pale but firm look. Prepared to assert her rights to the last, she was the very model of a determined woman, who, having been greatly wronged, resolves to be greatly avenged. If her lip quivered, it was evidently from eagerness, not from indecision; and her eye had the lightning of hell, not of heaven, in its glance. Barbara crouched at the feet of her mistress; and Lady Frances, to whom something new was synonymous with something delightful, was tip-toe with expectation. She believed, from what her father had hinted, that Constantia was free, and might wed whom she pleased: this imparted an hilarity to her countenance and manner, totally different from the aspect of all others within that room. Burrell himself looked like a bull turned into the arena, from whence there is no escape. His deep-set eyes were grown red and dry: but they rested, for a moment, while he saluted Constance and Lady Frances; their next movement showed him Zillah and her father, and he shrank within himself, and quailed beneath the defying gaze of the woman he had so deeply injured. For an instant, and but for an instant, eye met eye, and glance encountered glance: the Master of Burrell was overthrown, and looked round for some relief; but like other sinners, when the hour of retribution comes, he found none; for those he next saw were Dalton, Fleetword, and Robin Hays.

"We have more than circumstantial evidence to show now, Sir Willmott Burrell," exclaimed the Protector, after surveying him with a look of terrible contempt: "what say you to this lady? Is she, too, a counterfeit?"

Burrell remained silent; and while Cromwell paused, as if expecting an answer, the Preacher could no longer hold silence, but vociferated from behind his intrenchment:—

"Under favour of the Greatness before whom I speak—under the shadow of his wing—I proclaim thee to be a sinner—even as those who stoned the holy Stephen, when he was about the Lord's bidding—even as those——"

"Peace!" exclaimed Cromwell, in a voice that sounded like thunder in the Preacher's ear. "Sir Willmott Burrell, there are now sufficient proofs—what have you to say why this lady be not declared your lawful and wedded wife?"

"I desire it not! I desire it not!" murmured the Rabbi: "my wealth he shall not have, nor my child."

"But I desire it—I demand it!" interrupted Zillah; "not for my own sake, most gracious judge," and she bent her knee to the Protector; "for never will I commune with my destroyer after this hour—but for the sake of an unborn babe, who shall not blush for its parent, when this poor head and this breaking heart have found the quiet of the grave!"

"May it please your Highness," replied Burrell, "the marriage in a foreign land is nought, particularly when solemnised between a Christian and a Jew, unless ratified here; and I will submit to that ratification, if the Lady Constantia Cecil, whom I was about to wed, and whom the person your Highness designs for my wife sought to assassinate, will agree to it,—taking on herself the penalty to which her breach of contract must of necessity lead."

All eyes were now turned to Constantia, who sat labouring for breath, and struggling with an agony to which it almost seemed her life would yield.

"We have ourselves provided for the Lady Constantia a fitting mate, good Master of Burrell," replied the Protector; "think ye that the fairest of our land are to be thrown to the dogs?" Again he struck his pistol upon the oak table, and after a breathless silence, during which Burrell never removed his eyes from Constantia—(Lady Frances afterwards said she noted they had all the evil expression of those of the hooded snake, when preparing to dart upon its prey)—the villain contrived to move more closely towards his victim, whose misery was but faintly painted on her blanched cheek.

"A little time," she murmured; "a little time to deliberate."

"Not a moment—not a moment," he replied; "and remember——"

The words had hardly passed from between his closed lips, when Walter de Guerre was ushered in, and Burrell's brow flushed one deep hue of crimson. A murmur of congratulation escaped from several of the party; the Protector turned towards Constantia with the look and manner of one who has planned what he believes will be a joyful surprise—to be gratefully received and appreciated as such; instead of beholding her face beaming with love and hope, he saw that every fibre of her frame became rigid; and she endeavoured to bury her face in her hands.

"Mistress Cecil seems to approve our choice no better than her father's," he said, after a pause of intense anxiety to all present: "We would have taught this youth what is due to ourself and our Commonwealth, by the gentlest means within our power. Methinks, women are all alike."

"Father! she is dying!" exclaimed the easily-alarmed Lady Frances.

"One moment, and I shall be well," said Constantia: and then she added,

"Sir Willmott Burrell, you pant for vengeance, and now you may have it. Believing that lady, in the sight of God, to be your wife, I cannot wrong her; though I would have sacrificed myself to—to—." She was prevented from finishing her sentence by the Protector's exclaiming with the energy and warmth of his natural character,

"We knew it; and now let me present your bridegroom. Frances, it was excess of joy that caused this agitation."

Constantia interrupted him.

"Not so, your Highness. Alas! God knows, not so. But while I say that the evil contract shall never be fulfilled—though I will never become the wife of Sir Willmott Burrell, I also say that the wife of Walter de Guerre I can never be. Nay more, and I speak patiently, calmly—rather would I lay my breaking heart, ere it is all broken, beneath the waves that lash our shore, than let one solitary word escape me, which might lead you to imagine that even the commands of your Highness could mould my dreadful destiny to any other shape."

There was no mistaking the expression of the Protector's countenance; it was that of severe displeasure; for he could ill brook, at any period, to have his wishes opposed and his designs thwarted. While Constance was rising from her seat, Sir Willmott Burrell grasped her arm with fiendish violence, and extending his other hand towards the door leading to the closet, where she had left her sleeping father, he exclaimed:

"Then I accuse openly, in the face of the Protector and this company, Robert Cecil, who stands there, of the murder of his brother Herbert, and of the murder of Sir Herbert Cecil's son; and I assert that Hugh Dalton was accessory to the same!"

A shriek so wild and piercing issued from Constantia's lips that it rang over the house and terrified all its inmates, who crowded to the portal, the boundary of which they dared not pass.

It was little to be wondered that she did shriek. Turning toward the spot at which the villain pointed, the Protector saw the half-demented Baronet standing in the door-way. He had opened the closet, and come forth during the momentary absence of his attendant, and now stood moping and bowing to the assembly in a way that would have moved the pity of a heart of stone.

"Fiend!" shouted the Protector, grasping in his great anger the throat of Sir Willmott, and shaking him as he had been a reed—"'tis a false lie! He is no murderer; and if he had been, is it before his daughter that ye would speak it! Hah! I see it all now. Such is the threat—the lie—that gave you power over this excellence." He threw the ruffian from him with a perfect majesty of resentment. Gross as was the deed, the Protector condescending to throttle such as Burrell, the manner of the act was great: it was that of an avenging angel, not of an angry or impetuous man.

Sir Willmott regained his self-possession, although with feelings of wounded pride and indignation; fixing his eye upon Constantia with, if possible, increasing malignity, he spoke:—

"His Highness much honours his subject; but Mistress Cecil herself knows that what I have spoken is true—so does her father—and so does also this man! Is it not true, I ask?"

"No! I say it is false—false as hell!" answered the Buccaneer; "and if his Highness permits, I will explain."

"You say—what?" inquired Constantia, her whole countenance and figure dilating with that hope which had so long been a stranger to her bosom.

"I say that Robert Cecil is no murderer! Stand forth, Walter Cecil, and state that within the two last years, you saw your father in a Spanish monastery; and that——"

"Who is Walter Cecil?" inquired Burrell, struggling as a drowning man, while losing his last hope of salvation.

"I am WALTER CECIL!" exclaimed our old acquaintance Walter; "my nom de guerre is no longer necessary."

"It needed not that one should come from the dead to tell us that," said the Protector, impatiently; "but there are former passages we would have explained. What means the villain by his charge? Speak, Dalton, and unravel us this mystery."

"It is well known to your Highness, that few loved the former powers more than Sir Herbert Cecil; and truth to say, he was wild, and daring, and bad——"

"Dalton!" exclaimed the young man, in an upbraiding tone.

"Well, young master, I will say no more about it. Gold is a great tempter, as your Highness knows; and it tempted yonder gentleman, with whom God has dealt. He is a different sight to look upon now, to what he was the morning he sought me to commit a crime, which, well for my own sake, and the sake of others, I did not commit. He came to me——"

"Mercy! mercy! I claim your Highness' mercy!" said Constantia, falling on her knees, and holding her hands, clasped and trembling, above her head. "It is not meet that the child hear thus publicly of her father's sin! The old man, your Highness, has not power to speak!"

"Lady," continued Dalton, "he could not deny—But my tale will soon be finished, and it will take a load off your heart, and off the hearts of others. Sir Herbert did not die. I conveyed him to another land; but the papers—the instructions I had received, remained in my possession. Sir Herbert's wild character—his fondness for sea-excursions—his careless life, led to the belief that he had perished in some freak, in which he too often indulged. His brother apparently mourned and sorrowed; but, in time, the dynasty of England changed, exactly as he would have wished it—the Commonwealth soon gave the missing brother's lands to the man who was its friend, who had fought and laboured in its cause, and seemed to forget that any one else had any right to the possessions:—but the son of the injured remained as a plague-spot to his sight. I had but too good reason to know how this son of this elder brother was regarded, and I had learned to love the lad: he was ever about the beach, and fond of me, poor fellow! because I used to bring him little gifts from foreign parts—by way, I suppose, of a private atonement for grievous wrong. I took upon myself the removing of that boy to save him from a worse fate, for I loved him as my own child; and there he stands, and can say whether my plain speech be true or false. I was myself a father but a little while before I spirited him away from a dangerous home to a safe ship. Sir Robert believed they were both dead, and sorrowed not; although he compassed only the removal of the brother, yet the going away of his nephew made his possessions the more secure; for, as he said, times might change, and the boy be restored if he had lived. His disappearance made a great stir at the time; yet there were many went from the land then and were seen no more. I thought to rear him in my own line, but he never took kindly to it, so I just let him have his fling amongst people of his own thinking—gentry, and the like—who knew how to train him better than I did. I kept Sir Herbert safe enough until the act came out which gave Sir Robert right and dominion over his brother's land, declaring the other to have been a malignant, and so forth;—but the spirit was subdued within the banished man; he was bowed and broken, and cared nothing for liberty, but took entirely to religion, and became a monk; and his son, there, has seen him many a time; and it comforted me to find that he died in the belief that God would turn all things right again, and that his child would yet be master of Cecil Place. He died like a good Christian, forgiving his enemies, and saying that adversity had brought his soul to God—more fond of blaming himself than others. As to Walter, he had a desire to visit this country, and, to own the truth, I knew that if Sir Robert failed to procure the pardon I wanted, the resurrection of this youth would be an argument he could not withstand.

"Perhaps I was wrong in the means I adopted; but I longed for an honest name, and it occurred to me that Sir Robert Cecil could be frightened, if not persuaded, into procuring my pardon. God is my judge that I was weary of my reckless habits, and panted for active but legal employment. A blasted oak will tumble to the earth, if struck by a thunderbolt,—like a withy. Then my child! I knew that Lady Cecil cared for her, though, good lady, she little thought, when she first saw the poor baby, that it was the child of a Buccaneer. She believed it the offspring of a pains-taking trader, who had served her husband. She guessed the truth in part afterwards, but had both piety and pity in her bosom, and did not make the daughter suffer for the father's sin. I loved the girl!—But your Highness is yourself a father, and would not like to feel ashamed to look your own child in the face. I threatened Sir Robert to make known all—and expose these documents——"

The Skipper drew from his vest the same bundle of papers which he had used in that room, almost on that very spot, to terrify the stricken Baronet, a few months before. Sir Robert Cecil had remained totally unconscious of the explanations that had been made, and seemed neither to know of, nor to heed, the presence of Dalton, nor the important communication he had given—his eyes wandering from countenance to countenance of the assembled group,—a weak, foolish smile resting perpetually on his lip; yet the instant he caught a glimpse of the packet the Buccaneer held in his hand, his memory returned: he staggered from his daughter—who, after her appeal to Cromwell, clung to her father's side, as if heroically resolved to share his disgrace to the last—and grasped at the papers.

"What need of keeping them?" said the Protector, much affected at the scene: "give them to him, give them to him."

Dalton obeyed, and Sir Robert clutched them with the avidity of a maniac: he stared at them, enwreathed as they were by his thin, emaciated fingers, and then, bursting into a mad fit of exulting laughter, fell prostrate on the floor, before any one had sufficiently recovered from the astonishment his renewed strength had occasioned, to afford him any assistance. He was immediately raised by Constantia and his attendants, and conveyed to his own apartment, still holding fast the papers, though he gave little other sign of life. There was another, besides his daughter, who followed the stricken man—his nephew Walter.

"It is ill talking of marriage," said Cromwell, as the young man paused, and requested permission to leave the room,—"It is ill talking of marriage when Death stands at the threshold; but I have little doubt you will be able to obtain the hand which I could not dispose of. When I first saw you, I expected to see a different person—a director of spies—a chief of discord—a master, not a servant. Walter Cecil, although a bold Cavalier, would hardly have had power to draw me to the Isle of Shepey, had he not, on board the Fire-fly, chosen to embrown his face, and carry black ringlets over his own; a trick, perchance, to set the Protector on a wrong scent. Never hang y'er head at it, young man—such things have been from the beginning, and will be to the end. Methinks that old oaks stand friends with the party;—but I quarrel not with the tree—if it shielded the worthless Charles at Worcester, it revealed the true Walter at Queenborough. Yet I thank God on every account that I was led to believe you one whose blood I would fain not shed, but would rather protect—if that he has the wisdom not to trouble our country. I thank God that I was brought here to unravel and wind up. A ruler should be indeed a mortal (we speak it humbly) omnipresent! As to yonder man—devil I should rather call him—he has, I suppose, no farther threats or terrors to win a lady's love. Sir Willmott Burrell, we will at least have the ceremony of your marriage repeated without delay:—here is my friend's daughter—this night—."

"Not to-night," interrupted Zillah; "to-morrow, and not to-night; I can bear no more to-night."

"Sir Willmott Burrell," said Dalton, walking to where he stood, beaten down and trampled, yet full of poison as an adder's tooth, "be it known that I pity you:—your dagger has been turned into your own heart!—The human flesh you bribed me to destroy, lives! What message brought Jeromio from the ocean?"

Dalton was proceeding in a strain that would have quickly goaded Burrell to some desperate act; for, as the Buccaneer went on, he was lashing his passion with a repetition of the injuries and baseness of his adversary, as a lion lashes himself with his tail to stimulate his bravery; but the Protector demanded if Hugh Dalton knew before whom he stood, and dared to brawl in such presence. Silenced, but not subdued, he retreated, and contented himself with secret execrations on his enemy.

"We have rendered some justice to-night," said Cromwell, after striding once or twice the length of the apartment. "Yet is our task not finished, although the morning watch is come. Without there! Desire Colonel Jones that he remove Sir Willmott Burrell to the apartment he before occupied. The morning sun shall witness the completion of the ceremony between him and her he has so deeply wronged. We will then consider the course that justice may point out to us. Dalton, you are a free man, free to come and free to go, and to go as soon and where you please. Observe, I said as soon." Dalton bowed lowly, and moved to raise his daughter from the spot on which she had crouched by the seat of her beloved mistress; Robin instinctively moved also.

"Stay!" continued the Protector, "there is yet more to do. Young man, you must be well aware your act of this night demands some punishment. The ship which you destroyed—." Dalton writhed at the remembrance, and Barbara half unclosed her gentle lips.

"Please your Highness, I knew the man's affection for his ship, and I loved him better than the timber; he would have destroyed me in his anger but for poor Barbara."

"That is nothing to us; at the least, fetters must be your portion."

Barbara involuntarily sank on her knees, in an attitude of supplication. Robin knelt also, and by her side.

So touching was the scene, that Cromwell smiled while he laid his hand on her head, and with the other raised the long chain his daughter had given the modest bower-maiden, and which had remained suspended from her neck, he threw it over the shoulders of Robin, so that it encircled them both.

"We are clumsy at such matters," he continued, "but the Lord bless you! and may every virtuous woman in England meet with so warm a heart, and so wise a head, to love her and direct her ways—though the outward fashioning of the man be somewhat of the strangest."



CHAPTER XIV.

Know then, my brethren, heaven is clear, And all the clouds are gone; The righteous now shall flourish, and Good days are coming on: Come then, my brethren, and be glad, And eke rejoice with me.

FRANCIS QUARLES.

Over the happy and the miserable, the guilty and the good, Time alike passes; though his step may be light or heavy, according to the feelings of those who watch his progress, still he pursues, with sure and certain tread, a course upon which he never turns.

We are about to bid farewell to those who have been our companions through a long but we trust not a weary path; and we delay them but for a short space longer to learn how felt the household of Cecil Place, after the events and excitements of a day which gave birth to so many marvels, and unravelled so many mysteries.

We have, however, yet to deal out perfect justice,—and would fain tarry a moment to remark how rarely it is that, even in the sober world of Fact, the wicked finish their course—and vengeance has not overtaken. Truly has it been said that "virtue is its own reward:" as truly has it been added, that "vice brings its own punishment."

How lightly, and with how deep a blessing, did Constance Cecil, when the day was breaking, offer up a fervent thanksgiving to God that her only parent, though deeply sinful in intent, was free from blood, and, though worn in body, was sleeping as quietly as a wearied child when its task is ended. Her mother's spirit seemed to hover over and bless her, and imagination pictured another by her side who came to share the blessing—it was the companion of her childhood, the chosen, and loved, and trusted of a long and happy and prosperous after-life.

Constantia pressed her couch; but, with the exception of the worn and weary Sir Robert, whose existence quivered like the parting light of an expiring lamp, no eyes slumbered in Cecil Place. The Lady Frances Cromwell, upon that morning, took not up the lays of the foolish Waller, but the precious volume that, in her vanity, she had too often slighted—she read therein,—

"Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

And as she so read, a more calm and settled expression spread over her features; and after much musing and much thankfulness, she sought the chamber of her friend. Constantia was not alone, for, pale and weak, and trembling,—still like the aspen which every breeze may agitate,—the little Puritan Barbara crouched on an old cushion by the side of her lady's bed.

It did not escape the Lady Frances, that however thankful and comforted was Constantia by her release from the terrible doom of a union with Sir Willmott Burrell, she was deeply humbled and smitten by the publicity that had been given to her father's meditated crime, and she skilfully avoided any allusion to the scene of the night. The feelings of the maiden were, however, elicited sufficiently to satisfy even the curiosity of Frances Cromwell, by one of those simple incidents that speak more eloquently than words. As Barbara sat on the cushion, she could see into the garden beneath: the window overhung the very spot where Walter had gathered the wild rose as he went forth a prisoner, with Major Wellmore, from the house in which he was already considered a master; and the simple girl discerned, amid the foliage of the trees, even Walter himself, whose gaze was fixed upon the casement above.

"Look, Mistress, look!" she exclaimed.

Lady Frances and Constantia did look both at the same moment, and saw the same sight. They also both at once withdrew their glance, and, as the eyes of the ladies encountered, a blush, not of shame, or pride, or anger, overspread the fine features of Constantia—it was the pure bright colouring of assured affection; it said more than if volumes had been written to express her feelings. If she seemed less dignified, she looked more lovely than ever: it was as sunshine lending new warmth and fresh beauty to a landscape, which needed that alone to vivify and enlighten, to cheer and charm, to gladden and give life.

"Thank God!" exclaimed Frances, clasping her hands—"thank God!—after all, Constantia, you are but a woman!"

"My dear friend," replied the lady, literally turning on her couch to hide her blushes, "this is no time to trifle: the melancholy——"

She paused for want of words: that proneness to dissemble, which inevitably attends all women who ever were or ever will be in love, was struggling with her high and truthful nature. But Constantia was still Constantia, and could not depart from truth, so as successfully to feign what she did not feel: her sentence consequently remained unfinished, and Lady Frances was left at full liberty to draw her own conclusions therefrom,—a matter of no great difficulty.

"I have received a letter from my sister Mary," she said, kindly changing the subject, "and it will please you to know that my lordly father is inclined to listen to reason, and manifests a disposition to admit the reasonableness of his daughter Frances becoming Rich. Beshrew me! but most fathers like that distinction for their children; only, alas! in this instance, Rich and riches are not synonymous. What think you of that? His Highness has not said a word to me on the subject. There is your prim Barbara smiling. Ah! you too, I suppose, will soon be saluted as Mistress or Dame Hays. Fie, fie, Barbara! I thought you had better taste. But never mind, I will not say a word to his disparagement—no, nor suffer one of the court curs to growl at Crisp when he visits the buttery at Whitehall or Hampton. What have you done with the Lady Zillah?"

"So please you, madam," replied Barbara, "the Rabbi would not be separated from his daughter. He seems to think her only safe under his own eye. So he forced her to lie on his own bed, and she has fallen, poor lady, into a deep sleep—and he sits by her side, sometimes gazing upon a dim old book, full of strange marks and characters, but more often looking upon the face of his child, until his eyes fill with tears; and then he clasps his hands, and mutters, what I know must be a blessing, it is so earnest; and then, if perchance she moves and the pillow swells, or the coverlet be disturbed, he smooths it so gently you would think it was a woman's hand, and not that of a man. Ah, my lady! love makes all things gentle."

"I wonder," observed Lady Frances, "will she turn Christian?"

"She has been a kind nurse to me, in my trouble," replied the puritan; "but our good preacher says her heart is far from being humbled. She has a high mind, and is proud of her tribe. While we were in the cell, Master Fleetword took a deal of pains with her, and expoundiated most wonderfully for hours together; but I fear me the seed fell upon stony ground: for, though she sat still enough, I know she did not listen."

"Where is your father?"

Barbara started at the abruptness of the question, and colouring, she knew not why, said,

"Please you, my lady, though his Highness at first commanded him hence, he has graciously suffered him to remain until to-morrow's noon. Ah, madam!" she continued, sinking on the ground at Lady Frances's feet, "if you would only, only remember the promise you made when you gave me this,"—she held the clasp of the golden chain towards Lady Frances,—"and intercede with him, to whom is given the power of life and death, to pardon to the uttermost, and suffer Hugh Dalton to tarry on this island, I would—I would—alas! my lady, I am but a poor girl, and have nothing to give save blessings, and they shower so upon the heads of greatness that they must weary and not gladden; but my blessing would come from the heart, and it is not always, I hear, that the heart beats when the lips speak. So good, my lady, think upon your own great father; and think that as great as he have ere now asked for mercy; and then think upon mine—mine, who is as brave, and—and—will be as honest as the best man in all England. Then, gracious madam, it is not from presumption I speak, but Robin has wit and wisdom, and wit and wisdom are sometimes needed by those in high places; but he would lend—ay, give it all, to serve any one who pleasured me in a smaller thing than this. I can do nothing; but Robin is one who can always do much."

When Barbara had pleaded thus far, she could get no farther, but trembled, so that Lady Frances placed her on her cushion, and smilingly replied,

"So, for this woodbine-sort of assistance, you would have me rouse the British lion, who has been in such marvellous good temper lately that I fear me the wind will shift soon; but Cromwell, girl, is not one to halve his mercy. I can promise, not from my influence, but the knowledge of his mind, that Hugh Dalton will not be banished; nay, I am sure of it. But see ye there, the helmets are stirring already. Constantia, your chamber is delightful for a heroine, but a melancholy one for a curious maiden. Only behold! one can scarcely catch a glimpse of the court-yard. When I build a castle, I'll construct a turret with eyes, commonly called windows, all round it: nothing shall be done in secret!—Good morn to you, sweet friend! I can soon find out what the stir is about from the head of the great staircase."

"Adieu, fair Lady Curiosity," said Constantia, as Lady Frances tripped with a light step on her inquisitive mission: "I will now go to my father's chamber;" and thither she went, resolved to perform her duty to the last, though she shuddered at the remembrance of the crime he had once meditated, and humbly, earnestly prayed that the sin might be washed away from his soul.



CHAPTER XV.

This even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice To our own lips.

SHAKSPEARE.

As the grey and misty twilight brightened into the glowing and happy morn, there were two men prying about and around the otherwise deserted cavern of the Gull's Nest Crag.

Nothing is more dreary and lonely to look upon than a scene, where bustle and traffic have but lately been, changed, as if by magic, into a place of stillness—forsaken by those who gave to it animation and existence which before it knew not, and may never know again.

Solitude now covered it as with a pall. At the door of the once noisy and frequented hostelry, instead of the bent but busy figure of old Mother Hays, two sea-gulls stalked, and flapped their wings, and screamed, and thrust their bills into the rude cooking-pots that stood without.

The two persons, who appeared intent upon investigating the mysteries of the place, could not be seen without bending over the edge of the topmost cliff. It was then at once perceived that they were occupied in fulfilling no ordinary or every-day task. They moved in and out of the lower entrance like bees intent on forming new cells. For a considerable time no word was spoken by either: at length the object they had in view appeared accomplished, and, after climbing to the highest cliff, they sat down opposite each other, so as to command a full prospect of both sea and land.

"It was only a little farther on—about a quarter of a mile nearer Cecil Place—that I first set foot on the Isle of Shepey," said the younger, "and a precious fright I got—a fright that never was clear explained, nor ever will be now, I guess."

"I little thought matters would have had such an end," replied the other. "Gad, I'm hardly paid for the powder of the train by the few bits I've picked up inside. I couldn't believe, unless I'd seen it myself, that the place was so cleared out: except the furs and shawls belonging to the women, there wasn't the wrapping round my finger of anything worth having. Well, Hugh had many friends—I never thought he'd turn tail."

"Turn tail!" repeated the youth: "who dares to say he turned tail? If any one repeats that before me, I'll make free to give him a dose of cold lead without farther ceremony!"

"All our chickens are game-cocks now-a-days!" returned the elder one, half laughing: "but, Springall, could you swear that the Skipper and Robin Hays didn't concert it all together?"

"Let me alone, Jack, and don't put my back up. I'll lay my life, if there was any concerting in it, 'twas between Robin and the maid Barbara. Well, girls have queer fancies!—Who'd ha' thought she'd ha' fancied Robin?—though he's a brave sound-hearted little fellow; yet who'd ha' thought she'd have preferred him to—to——"

"To you, I suppose. Lord, Springall, there's no coming up to the women. Bless ye, I've seen those who loved apes, and parrots, and puppy-dogs, and took more pride and pleasure in them than in their own lawful husbands and born children! What d'ye think o' that? Why, would you believe it? a girl I loved better than my heart's blood took a fancy to an old man, and sent me adrift, though I was a likely fellow then—ah! different, very different to what I am now;" and Jack Roupall, leaning his elbows on his knees, that were wide apart, commenced drawing, with the butt end of his pistol, figures on the sand, which the wind, whether in anger or sportiveness, had flung upon the crag. After a lengthened pause, he looked suddenly up at the youth Springall, who still sat opposite to him, and said abruptly, "Are you sure you made no mistake?"

"Am I sure of the sight of my eyes, or the hearing of my ears?" returned the lad. "I was as close to the troopers as I am to you, though they saw me not, and their entire talk was of the Gull's Nest, and how they were all to be down here soon after sunrise; and a deal of jokes, in their own way, they passed upon it—stiff dry jokes, that were as hard to swallow as a poker."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the smuggler; "how they will pray when they see the crag dancing in the air! It would be ill done towards the secret stations of our friends on other parts of the coast, to let these fellows find the ins and outs of such a place as this; it would be holding a candle to the devil—giving them a guide to lead them on through all their plans henceforward and for ever. The Gull's Nest shall go after the Fire-fly. It gives me joy to mar their sport—their peeping and prying. But we will not let off the train until we see them pretty close upon us. The Roundhead rascals shall have the full benefit of our gay bonfire. 'Ods rot it! what else could we do, but make a gay ending of it at once. A gay ending!" he repeated—"a gay ending! No rock to mark the spot of so much merriment, so much joviality, so much spoil! Ah! in a hundred years, few can tell where the watchers of the Gull's Nest Crag lighted beacon and brand for the free rovers of the free sea!"

Another pause succeeded the rhapsody of Jack Roupall and then Springall inquired how it was that he could not open the strong room where the preacher had been left to his prayers.

"How it was? why, because I had not the key. And I am sure there's nothing in it. I was in with the skipper after the long-legged puritan was out, and I could see only squashed fruit, broken boxes, and old good-for-nothing rags. Whatever had been worth moving was moved; but that room will mount as high as any of them, I warrant me. I laid a good lot of combustibles to the door. Ah! there was the gleam of a spear, to my thinking." And he arose as he spoke, groaning out a curse against Springall the moment after. "My back—a murrain upon you and upon me too!—aches like the rheumatism from the weight of that old hag's coffin, which you would have me carry from the Gull's Nest out yonder, for fear it should be blown up with the crag. What did it signify if it was, I wonder?"

"You wouldn't like the body of your own mother to go heavenward after such a fashion, sinner as ye are, would ye, Jack?"

"They are coming," observed the rover, without heeding Springall's words, "they are coming."

It was a fine sight to see even a small number of such well-disciplined soldiers winding their way under the shadow of the hill nearest the scene of so many adventures.

Roupall and the youth crept stealthily down the cliff by a secret path; then, with the greatest deliberation, Jack struck a light, and prepared to fire the train they had connected with those within the nest, to which we alluded at the commencement of our narrative; while Springall proceeded to perform a similar task a little lower down the Crag, towards the window from whence the preacher, Fleetword, slung the packet which so fortunately arrived at the place of its destination.

The instant their purpose was effected by a signal agreed upon between them they quickly withdrew, and sheltered beneath the shade of a huge rock left bare by the receding tide, where no injury could befal them. It was well they did so, for in a moment the report as of a thousand cannon thundered through the air, and fragments of clay, rock, and shingle fell, thick as hail, and heavy as millstones, all around.

Immediately after a piercing cry for aid burst upon their ear, and spread over land and water.

"God of Heaven!" exclaimed Springall, "it is not possible that any human creature could have been within the place!" and he stretched himself forward, and looked up to where the cry was uttered.

The young man, whose locks were then light as the golden beams of the sun, and whose step was as free as that of the mountain roe, lived to be very old, and his hair grew white, and his free step crippled, before death claimed his subject; he was moreover one acquainted in after years with much strife and toil, and earned honour, and wealth, and distinction; but often has he declared that never had he witnessed any thing which so appalled his soul as the sight he beheld on that remembered morning. He seized Roupall's arm with convulsive energy, and dragged him forward, heedless of the storm of clay and stones that was still pelting around them. Wherever the train had fired, the crag had been thrown out; and as there were but few combustibles within its holes, and the gay sunlight had shorn the flames of their brightness, the objects that struck the gaze of the lookers on were the dark hollows vomiting forth columns of black and noisome smoke, streaked with a murky red.

As the fire made its way according to the direction of the meandering powder, which Dalton himself had laid in case of surprise, the earth above reeled, and shook, and sent forth groans, like those of troubled nature when a rude earthquake bursts asunder what the Almighty united with such matchless skill. The lower train that Springall fired had cast forth, amongst rocks and stones, the mass of clay in which was the loophole through which Fleetword had looked out upon the wide sea. Within the chasm thus created was the figure of a living man. He stood there with uplifted hands, lacking courage to advance; for beneath, the wreathed smoke and dim hot fume of the consuming fire told him of certain death; unable to retreat,—for the insidious flame had already destroyed the door which Roupall had failed to move, and danced, like a fiend at play with destruction, from rafter to rafter, and beam to beam, of the devoted place.

"Ha!" exclaimed the reckless rover, with a calmness which at the moment made his young companion upbraid him as the most merciless of human kind; "ha! I wonder how he got there? I heard that some how or other he was in limbo at Cecil Place; he wanted to make an escape, I suppose, and so took to the old earth. Ay, ay! look your last on the bright sun, that's laughing at man and man's doings—you'll never mount to where it shines, I trow."

Sir Willmott Burrell—for Roupall had not been deceived either as to the identity of the person, or the motive which led him to seek refuge in the Gull's Nest—had effected an almost miraculous escape, considering how closely he was guarded, a few hours before, and secreted himself in the very chamber where he had left poor Fleetword to starvation, little imagining that he was standing on the threshold of retributive justice. He had caught at flight, even so far, as a sort of reprieve; and was forming plans of future villany at the very moment the train was fired. God have mercy on all sinners! it is fearful to be cut off without time for repentance. Sir Willmott had none. In the flower of manhood, with a vigorous body and a skilful mind, he had delighted in evil, and panted for the destruction of his fellows. His face, upon which the glare of the garish fire danced in derision of his agony, was distorted, and terrible to look upon: brief as was the space allotted to him, each moment seemed a year of torture. As the flames rose and encircled their victim, his cries were so dreadful, that Springall pressed his hands to his ears, and buried his face in the sand; but Roupall looked on to the last, thinking aloud his own rude but energetic thoughts.

"Ah! you do not pray, as I have seen some do! Now, there come the Ironsides," he added, as those grave soldiers drew up on a projection of the opposite cliff, which, though lower than the ruined Gull's Nest, commanded a view of the cavern and its sole inmate; "there they come, and just in time to see your departure for your father the devil's land. You don't even die game! What an end one of those Ingy chiefs would ha' made of it on such a funeral pile; but some people have no feeling—no pride—no care for what looks well!"

At that instant the Preacher Fleetword, who had accompanied the troops, stood a little in advance of the Protector himself. Cromwell had a curiosity to inspect the resort of the Buccaneers; and, perfectly unconscious of Sir Willmott's escape, was petrified with horror and astonishment on seeing him under such appalling circumstances; the tumbling crags—the blazing fire—the dense smoke mounting like pillars of blackness into the clear and happy morning sky—and, above all, the agonised scorching figure of the wretched knight, writhing in the last throes of mortal agony!

"The Lord have mercy on his soul!" exclaimed Fleetword: "Pray, pray!" he continued, elevating his voice, and hoping, with a kindliness of feeling which Sir Willmott had little right to expect, that he might be instrumental in directing the wretched man's attention to a future state. "Pray! death is before you, and you cannot wrestle with it! Pray! even at the eleventh hour! Pray!—and we will pray with you!"

The Preacher uncovered: the Protector and his soldiers stood also bareheaded on the cliff. But not upon the prayers of brave and honest soldiers was the spirit of active villany and cowardly vice to ascend to the judgment seat of the Almighty—before one word of supplication was spoken, a column of flame enwreathed the remaining portion of the crag: it was of such exceeding brightness that the soldiers blinked thereat; and, when its glare was past, they looked upon a smouldering heap at the foot of the cliffs: it was the only monument of "The Gull's Nest Crag;" and the half-consumed body of Sir Willmott Burrell was crushed beneath it.

While the attention of Cromwell and his friends was fixed upon the desperate end of the miserable man, Roupall was crawling under a ledge of black rock, that stretched to a considerable distance into the sea, where he calculated on remaining safe until high tide drove him to another burrow. Not so Springall: the moment he saw the Protector on the cliff, he appeared to have forgotten every thing connected with disguise or flight; he no longer sought concealment, but hastened to present himself in front of the soldiers, who still remained uncovered, expecting, doubtless, that such an event would be followed by exposition or prayer.

Nothing daunted, he advanced with a steady and determined step, without so much as removing his hat, until he stood directly opposite to Cromwell, whose countenance, under the influence of awe and horror, had something in it more than usually terrific. The clear blue eye of the young intrepid boy encountered the grey, worn, and bloodshot orb of the great and extraordinary man.

For an instant, a most brief instant, eye rested upon eye—then the young seaman's dropped, and it would seem that his gay and lofty head bent of itself, the hat was respectfully removed, and he confessed to himself that he trembled in the presence of the mysterious being.

"We would not quench the spirit," said the Protector, addressing Fleetword, "but let your prayer be short—a word in season is better than a sermon out of season. We have somewhat to investigate touching the incendiaries by land as well as sea."

For the first time in his life Springall considered that a prayer might not be of wearisome length. There he stood, as if nailed to the same spot, while the smoke of the Gull's Nest ascended, and the soldiers remained with their helmets in their hands.

Cromwell manifested an occasional impatience, but only by moving first on one leg, then on the other; which, however, escaped the observation of Fleetword, who most certainly became a more dignified and self-important person ever after the hour when he was "permitted to speak in the presence of the ruler in the New Jerusalem."

His address was brief and emphatic; and upon its conclusion the Protector commanded Springall to advance.

"It appears to us that you had something to communicate."

"I believe I made a mistake," replied the boy, "I took you—your Highness, I should say—for one Major Wellmore."

"We know you to be a faithful watchman, but it remains to be proved if you are an honest witness. Canst tell how came about this business, and how Sir Willmott Burrell escaped, and took refuge there?"

"It was always settled, please your Highness, that, if any thing happened, whoever could was to fire off the trains, which were always ready laid, to make an ending when needed: we little thought that there was any living being within the nest; but Sir Willmott had access to many of the cells, being as deep in their secrets as other resorters to this place—only he never had the bravery of the free trade about him, seeing he was far from honest."

Springall observed not the warning finger of Robin Hays, nor heard the murmured sentence of caution that fell upon his ear from the lips of Walter Cecil. Although he had assumed an attitude of daring, his whole thoughts were fixed on the Protector. He was proceeding in the same strain, when Cromwell interrupted him.

"Peace, youngster! it is ill from one who has committed evil, like yourself, to speak evil of the living, much less the dead;—it was you, we take it, who reduced this place to destruction?"

"Please your Highness, I did."

"You and another?"

"Well, sir, there was another: but he's gone—no use in trying to find him, he's away. If," added the young man, with his usual recklessness, "there should be punishment for destroying a wasp's nest, your Highness shall see that I will bear it as well as——"

The Protector again interrupted the youth's eloquence by adding, "As well as you did the hanging over yonder bay? No, no—we can discriminate, by God's blessing, between the young of the plundering fox and the cub of a lion: both are destructive, but the one is mean and cowardly: the other—it shall be our care to train the other to nobler purposes."

Springall raised his eyes, almost for the first time, from the ground, and started at seeing his friends standing on a level with the Protector. Robin's cheek was blanched, and his ken wandered over the blazing gulf which had swallowed up the dwelling of his early years.

Springall, with the quickness of feeling that passes from kind heart to kind heart, without the aid of words, sprang towards him, and catching his arm, exclaimed,

"Your mother's body! it is safe, safe, Robin, under the dark tree, by the cairn stones. Surely I would not let it be so destroyed."

Cromwell's veneration for his own mother was one of the most beautiful traits in his character; from that instant the Protector of England took the boy Springall unto his heart: there was something in common between them—out of such slight events are destinies moulded.

"Your Highness," said Walter, whom we must now distinguish as WALTER CECIL, "will pardon one who is indebted to you, not only for a restored fortune, but for his hopes of happiness. Your Highness will, I trust, pardon me for so soon becoming a suitor:—that boy——"

"Shall be cared for—it pleased the Almighty that Major Wellmore encountered more than one brave heart and trusty hand in this same Isle of Shepey. After a time we trust to show you and your cousin-bride, when she visits her god-mother, how highly we esteem your friendship; and we trust, moreover, that the awful lesson of retributive justice, it has graciously pleased the Lord to write in palpable letters of fire, will be remembered by all those who hear of Hugh Dalton and the Fire-fly. Great as is the power given into our keeping, we would not have dared to execute such awful judgment as that which has fallen upon the man of many sins. And behold, also, by the hands of the ungodly righteous punishment has been dealt unto the sticks and stones that have long given to rapine most unworthy shelter. The wheat, too, mark ye, young sir!—the wheat has been divided—glory be to God! for it is his doing. The wheat has been divided from the tares—and from amid the lawless and the guilty have come forth some who may yet take seats among the faithful in Israel."



CONCLUDING CHAPTER.

Twelve years—twelve eventful years—had passed, and, ere our work is done, we must entreat our readers to visit with us, once again, the old Isle of Shepey. The thoughtless, good-tempered, dissipated, extravagant, ungrateful, unprincipled Charles, had been called by the sedate, thinking, and moral people of England to reign over them. But with English whim, or English wisdom, we have at present nought to do; we leave abler and stronger heads to determine, when reviewing the page of history, whether we are or are not a most change-loving people—lovers of change for the sake of change.

Our business is with an aged man, seated, on a pleasant evening of the year 1668, under a noble oak, whose spreading branches shadowed a brook that babbled at his feet.

The beams of the setting sun were deepening the yellow tints of yet early autumn, and many of the trees looked as if steeped in liquid gold. In the distance, the ocean, quiet, calm, unruffled, was sleeping beneath the sober sky, and not a breeze wafted its murmurs to the little streamlet by the side of which that old man sat. He was but one of a group; four healthy and handsome children crowded around him, watching, with all the intense hope and anxiety of that happy age, the progress of his work. He was occupied, as grandfathers often are, in constructing a toy for his grandchildren. The prettiest of the party was a dark-eyed rosy girl of about four, perhaps five—for her countenance had more intelligence than generally belongs to either age, while her figure was slight and small, small enough for a child not numbering more than three years: she, too, was employed—stitching, with a long awkward needle, something which looked very like the sail of a baby-boat. A boy, somewhat older than herself, was twisting tow into cordage, while the eldest, the man of the family, issued his directions, or rather his commands, to both, in the customary style of lads when overlooking their juniors. The next to him was probably grandpapa's especial pet, for he knelt at the old man's knee, watching patiently, and taking good note, how he secured the principal mast steadily in the centre of the mimic vessel, it had been his kind task to frame for the youngsters' amusement.

It must not be forgotten that a very pretty spaniel crouched at the little maid's feet, and ever and anon lifted its mild gentle eyes to the countenance of its mistress.

"Con," said the eldest boy, "you are making those stitches as long as your own little fingers; and you must remember, that if the work is not done neatly, the wind may get into the turnings and throw the ship on her beam-ends."

"Grandfather!" exclaimed the child, holding up her work with an imploring look, "be those stitches too long? If you say so, grandfather, I will take them all out, because you know."

"They will do very nicely indeed, Conny," replied the old man, with an approving smile; "and as for you, Master Walter, I wish that your work was always done as well as your sister's. Bless her! how like her mother she is!"

"I wish I was like my mother too," said Walter, "for then you would love me."

"Boys and girl, I love you all, and thank God that, in these bad times, you are as good as you are! But, Watty, you must never think of the sea; you were not intended for a sailor, or you would not talk of wind getting into the stitchings of a topsail, and throwing the ship on her beam-ends—ha, ha!"

The proud boy turned blushingly away, and began playing with, or rather teazing, a very old nondescript dog, who was lying comfortably coiled up on the youngest lad's pinafore, under shelter of the grey stone which the grandfather used as his seat.

"Wat will be a soldier," said the second boy, whose name was Hugh; "his godpapa, Sir Walter, says he shall. But you will teach me to be a sailor before you die, and then I may live to be as great as the great man you and father talk about, the brave Blake. Oh! how proud I should be if you could live to see that day," he continued, his bright eyes dancing at the anticipation of future glory. "And you may, dear grandfather, for mother says that Crisp is older now for a dog than you are for a man. Watty, you had better not teaze Crisp, for he has three teeth left."

"Three!" interrupted little Con, whose fine name of Constantia had been diminished to the familiar appellation—"three! he has four and a half and a little piece, for I opened his mout and counted them myself."

"When do you mean to speak plain, and be a lady, Miss Con?"

The child looked into her brother's face, and laughed a gleesome laugh, one of those burstings of a joyous heart that come, we know not how, but never come after the dancing pulse of youth changes into a measured time, when we look upon the dial's hand, and note that hours are passing.

"Grandfather," said Hugh, when the mast was fairly established, and the rigging properly arranged, "may I call my vessel the 'Firefly?'"

From whence came the rich warm blood that in a moment suffused the old man's cheek, as his unconscious grandchild pronounced the name of his darling, his long-lost, but not forgotten ship? He grasped the boy's arm with the energy of former times, and shook him as he never thought to have shaken the child of his own Barbara.

"Where heard you those words—where, I say?" he demanded of his namesake, while the boy cowered, and the other children stood aghast.

"I heard that wild old man who died in our barn last week, although mother made him so comfortable, and you and father were so kind to him, say that was the name of a ship you once had," sobbed little Hugh: "and I only thought I should like to call mine after it."

"And was that indeed all?" inquired the aged Buccaneer, relaxing his grasp, but still looking into the boy's ingenuous countenance, as if he expected some evil tidings.

"It was all that I understood," replied the child, now weeping from pain and terror, "except that I remember he asked to be buried at East-Church, because that was nearer what he called the Gull's Nest Crag than the old church of Minster."

"Poor Jack!—poor Jack Roupall!" exclaimed Dalton, forgetting his momentary displeasure, and musing aloud upon the end of his ever reckless follower—"Poor Jack! The nut had been good, fresh, sweet, wholesome, though the rind was rough and bitter; it was the canker that destroyed it: and I should have been as bad—as blighted—lost—but for my own sweet child." And then Hugh Dalton's eye fell upon the pouting boy, whose arm he had, in the anguish of his remembrance, pressed too roughly, and he caught him to his bosom, and blessed him with all his heart and soul.

Little Con crept round, and, seeing where her brother's arm was still red, held it to her grandfather's lip, saying,

"Kiss, kiss it, and make it well."

The old man did as that child in her simplicity directed; and, when she again looked upon it, there was more than one tear glistening on the fair firm flesh.

"Let us call her 'King Charles,'" exclaimed the eldest boy, as the gallant little vessel moved down the stream; while the children, who not ten minutes before were trembling with alarm at their grandfather's displeasure, now, with the happy versatility of youthful spirits, shouted gaily at the ship's progress over the unrippled waters.

"You will call it by no such name," said Dalton gravely. "Yonder comes your mother, and she or your father can best christen your little ship."

The old man, who had launched their fairy boat, turned towards where once Cecil Place had stood. From some peculiar feeling in the bosoms of Sir Walter and Lady Cecil, for which it would not be difficult to account, only a portion of the old structure remained—sufficient, and just sufficient, to lodge Robin, and Robin's wife, and Robin's father-in-law, and Robin's children. The fine old gateway was fast crumbling to decay, and, indeed, it was well known that a kindly sentiment towards the Buccaneer decided Sir Walter on keeping even so much of the place standing, as the old man's only wish now was to die in the Isle of Shepey; and it will be readily believed that Hugh Dalton's wishes were laws to the family of Cecil. The trees had in many places been levelled, and the only spot which remained perfectly untouched in the gardens was one called "The Fairy Ring." The neighbouring peasantry believed that it was hallowed by some remembrance of which both Lady Cecil and Barbara partook; for the latter tended every herb and flower therein with more than common care—with perfect devotion. Did we say there was but one spot cherished? faithless historians that we are! there was another—a rustic temple; and, about ten years before the period of which we now treat, something resembling an altar had been erected therein, with a quaint device carved in white stone, a braid of hair encircling two hearts, and a rhyme, or, as it was then called, a posy, the words of which are not recorded, but were said to have been written by Lucy Hutchinson, as a compliment to her friend Constantia Cecil.

The old man, as we have said, turned towards Cecil Place, which then presented only the appearance of a small and picturesque dwelling. Issuing thence were two persons whom we may at once introduce as the manikin, Robin Hays, and the little Puritan, Barbara Iverk, of our story. Manikin, indeed! He of the gay pink doublet, silken hose, and plume hat, would little thank us for the term! He was rather over than under-dressed, more fine than might be expected in a country gentleman in so lonely an island; but it was evident he loved finery, and loved to deck his own person: his long black hair curled naturally and gracefully over his shoulders; his eyes had more to do, during latter years, with love and home, than with hate and adventure; consequently they sparkled with pure and kindly feeling; and if sometimes sarcasm lighted its beacon within their lids, it was quickly extinguished by the devoted affection and gratitude of his right excellent heart. His figure appeared much less disproportioned than when first we saw him taunted into fury in his mother's hostelry by poor Jack Roupall's ill-timed jests on his deformity: he was much stouter; and the full cavalier dress was better calculated to hide any defects of person, than the tight fitting vests of the bygone Roundheads, who looked to every inch of cloth with a carefulness altogether scouted by their more heedless successors. He had a free and open air, and a smile of dazzling brightness. What can we say of Barbara? Female beauty is seldom stationary; there is no use in disguising the fact, that after twenty—dear, sweet, fascinating twenty! the freshness of the rose is gone. We have said freshness—not fragrance. Fragrance to the rose, is what the soul is to the body—an imperishable essence, that lasts after the petals have meekly dropped, one by one, upon their mother-earth. A blessing upon the fragrance of sweet flowers! and a thousand blessings upon the power that gifted their leaves with such a dowry! Oh, it partakes of heaven to walk into the pastures and inhale the goodness of the Lord, from the myriad field-flowers that gem the earth with beauty! And then in sickness! What, what is so refreshing as the perfume of sweet plants? We speak not of the glazed and costly things that come from foreign lands, but of the English nosegay—(how we love the homely word!)—the sweet briar, lavender, cowslip, violet, lily of the valley, or a sprig of meadow sweet, a branch of myrtle, a tuft of primroses, or handful of wild thyme! Such near the couch of sickness are worth a host of powdered doctors! Again we say, a blessing on sweet flowers! And now for one who loved them well, and learnt much wisdom "from every leaf that clothed her native hills." Barbara was no longer the slight, delicate girl, tripping with an orderly but light step to do the behests of those she loved; but a sober, diligent, affectionate matron, zealous in the discharge of her duty, patient in supporting pain, whether of mind or body; a sincere Christian, a kind mistress, a gentle daughter, a wise mother, but, above all, a devoted, trusting wife, still looking upon Robin—her Robin, as the English Solomon,—a system we advise all wives to follow—when they can. The manner in which this truly pious woman yielded to all her husband's whims was almost marvellous—one of the miracles of that miracle-worker—LOVE! With the simple, yet discriminating tact, of itself a gift from nature, which no earthly power can either bestow or teach, she understood the wishes of Robin almost before he was himself acquainted with his own thoughts. And had she been on her death-bed, that excellent creature could have declared before Him, to whom all things are known, that "God and her husband" had been her true heart's motto.

Even Robin's weaknesses were hallowed, if not cherished things—she innocently catered to his personal vanity, for she really loved to see him well appointed; and she avoided every thing bordering on gaiety of dress, manner, or society, because she felt that jealousy was one of his infirmities; thus by never arousing his evil passions, their very existence was forgotten, and the violent, capricious Ranger would have been hardly recognized (except by his very intimates), as the self-satisfied, and somewhat important manager of Sir Walter Cecil's estates.

As Robin and Barbara drew near their father and the children, they perceived a Cavalier well mounted, and attended by two serving men, also on horseback, winding along the hill path, or road, as it was called; and the younger dog—by the way a daughter of our old acquaintance Blanche—gave notice to the little mariners of the approach, by bristling her silken hair and rounding her flapping ears, while she barked long and loudly at the unusual arrival.

The Buccaneer shaded his eyes with his hand and looked out. Robin jerked his hat a little more on one side, while Barbara drew the Flanders lace of her silken hood more closely round her face.

"It is a Court Cavalier," exclaimed Master Hays, as he was respectfully termed by his associates, "with two attendants and a dog; beshrew me! but a noble dog from foreign parts; some friend of our kind master is that gentleman. One would think he was reconnoitring, so earnestly does he look out from place to place. Father," he continued, drawing towards Dalton, "do you note how he peers out yonder, towards where once—you understand me——"

"I do," replied the old man, "I do note it; and I note also that yon same Cavalier is no other than one we both knew well. There! he sees us—his hat is off—he hails us right joyfully. Know you not the bold brow, and the bright eye—blue, blue as the waters and the heavens he has so long looked upon? Off with ye'r hats, my boys," he added to the children; "and, Robin, is yours nailed to your head, that it answers not his signal?—it is the young sea captain of whom, even here, we have heard and read so much. It is Springall!"

And so it was; distinguished by the Protector at the very moment when to be so distinguished makes a man's fortune, the bold intrepid boy quickly ripened into the able and experienced seaman. His promotion was rapid, because his talents were appreciated—and, after the death of Cromwell, he had been too much occupied with England's enemies at sea, to suffer from the moral blight of Charles's court on shore.

* * * * *

"Now, Springall—I love to call you by that name," said the Buccaneer, "though you have taken your old one, and made it even more honoured than it was before,—the evening has closed in—the children a-bed—God bless them! We will draw nearer round our cheerful hearth, and talk of days long gone. Barbara, let's have some fresh logs on the fire; and now, for past and present times."

"I am a bad hand at a long yarn—you know I always was so, captain,"—said the naval officer, smiling, "and the news of poor Jack's death has damped my canvass. I always thought he'd make a queer end of it—so fond of plunder—so careless—so unprincipled—but brave, brave to the backbone."

"Do you remember what he dared, by way of adventure, not a hundred miles from this; when Major Wellmore and Walter De Guerre were masquing it here so gaily?" inquired Robin.

"Ay, ay! But he and Grimstone were both half-seas over, or they'd have hardly ventured it:—poor Grim paid the penalty."

"And deserved it too," added Robin. "He whom they assaulted was a wonder—a being that will serve future ages to talk about, when the rulers of the present day are either execrated or forgotten. Marry! but it makes one's head swim to think of the warm blood and true that has been spilled and wasted to raise up a throne for obscenity and folly! Chambering and wantonness walk together as twin-born, along the very halls where Cromwell, and Ireton, and Milton, and—my head's too hot to recollect their names; but they are graven on my heart, as men who made England a Queen among the nations."

"Then their Popery plots!" chimed in the Buccaneer; "the innocent blood that has flooded the scaffold, as if the earth was thirsty for it—and upon what grounds? the evidence, I hear, of one villain, supported by the evidence of another! I grieve for one thing, truly—that I was ever instrumental in forwarding the King's views. Robin said a true word in jest the other day, that men as well as puppies were born blind, only it takes a much longer period to open our eyes, than those of our four-footed friends."

"So it does," said Springall, laughing; "that was one of Robin's wise sayings. Barbara!—I beg your pardon,—Mistress Hays—do you think him as wise as ever?"

"I always thought him wise; but I know it now," she replied, smiling.

"Sit ye down, Barbara," said Robin, "and our friend here will tell you how much he admires our children; they are fine, healthy, and, though I say it, handsome—straight withal—straight as Robin Hood's own arrow; and I do bless God for that—for that especially! I would rather have seen them dead at my feet than——"

"Now, God forgive you, Rob! so would not I. I should have loved them as well, had they been crooked as—" interrupted his wife.

"Their father!"

"For shame, Robin!"

Robin looked at Barbara and laughed, but turned away his head; and then he looked a second time, and saw that a deep red hue had mounted to his wife's cheek, while a tear stood in her eye; and he forgot the stranger's presence, and converted the tear to a gentle satisfied smile, by a kind and affectionate kiss. How little tenderness, how little, how very little, does it take to constitute the happiness of a simple mind!

"There was a strange long preacher here, ages ago," inquired Springall, filling his silver cup with sherris; "he surely did not migrate with the higher powers?"

"No!" replied Dalton, whose eyes had been fixed upon the burning logs, as if recapitulating the events of former days; "he was a staunch and true-hearted Puritan, apt to take wrong notions in tow, and desperately bitter against Papistry, which same bitterness is a log I never could read, seeing that the best all sects can accomplish is to act up to the belief they have. But, as I have said, he was true-hearted, and never recovered the tale we heard, as to the way in which the new directors insulted the remains of one whom they trembled even to look at in his lifetime. He died off, sir, like an autumn breeze, chilly and weak, but praying, and thankful that God was so good as to remove him from the blight of the Philistines, who covered the earth as thickly as the locusts overspread the land of Egypt."

"I never did, nor ever can believe," said Robin, "it was permitted that such cravens should insult the body of so great a soul. The Protector wished to be buried on the field of Naseby, and something tells me he had his wish."

"Your politics changed as well as mine!" replied the sea-captain; "what cavaliers we were in the days of our youth—heh, Commandant!"

"It is very odd, Springall," replied the old Skipper; "but somehow, my heart is too full for words; I seem to be living my life over again; and but now could have sworn I saw poor Sir Robert, as I saw him last, clutching those dreaded papers. What a night that was, and what a day the next!"

"And the poor Lady Zillah, when she heard of Sir Willmott's end!" said Barbara. "She spoke no word, she made no scream; but her trouble came quickly, and hard and bitter it was; and the child her hope rested on breathed no breath—there was no heir to the house of Burrell; and she and her father passed from the land, and were seen no more."

"Seen no more, certainly; but many were the jewels and costly the tirings she sent from foreign parts to my lady's firstborn," continued Robin.

"And to me she sent baubles,—not baubles either," added Barbara, "but things too costly for one in my state. Her last gift was the most precious in my sight—a gold cross, and along the top these words—'Thy God shall be my God;' and down the centre—'Thy people my people!' It gave me great consolation; it was like a token of resignation and peace, and a wonderful working of God's providence." And after she had so said, she went out of the room, to conceal the emotion she always felt when speaking of the Jewish lady.

"So it was undoubtedly," rejoined Robin, who had not noted Barbara's departure.

"Despite your bravery, Master," said the seaman, "I think you have got a touch of the past times yourself; I have not heard the breath of an oath from either?"

"Hush!" replied Robin, looking round the room, and right pleased to find that Barbara was absent: "were it only to avoid giving her pain, it would ill become either of us to blaspheme Him in whom we trust."

"And so you say," commenced Dalton, uniting the thread of the discourse, which had been broken, "that Sir Walter and Lady Cecil are seldom seen at court? I heard this before, but not for certain."

"Seldom, you may well say," returned Springall; "the king presented Lady Castlemaine to the Lady Constantia, at one of the drawing-rooms; and our right noble dame declared it was the last she would ever attend. It was said that the king spoke to Sir Walter about it; and I think it likely, as he knew him abroad so well. And Sir Walter was even more high on the matter than his lady had been; and the king jested, and said it was only the court fashion; to which Sir Walter returned for answer, that, however it might be the court fashion, it was scarce courtly to present an immodest to a modest woman. With that the king chafed, and said he supposed Lady Constantia's friendship for Dame Frances Russell was stronger than her loyalty, for she regarded Cromwell's daughter, both as RICH and RUSSELL, more than she did his favour. And Sir Walter, making a low bow, replied that Lady Constantia had little thought to displease her king by her attachment to a lady who had once been honoured by the offer of his hand. Upon which the king bit his lip, turned upon his heel, and spoke no farther word to Sir Walter Cecil."

"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.

"It is not seemly in woman to drink of strong waters or glowing wine," said Barbara, whose tearful eyes rested upon the time-worn features of her father: "but, God knows, my heart is often so full of grateful thanks, that I lack words to speak my happiness; and I have need of constant watchfulness to prevent the creature from occupying the place of the Creator. My father has sometimes hours of bitterness, yet I bless God he is not as a brand consumed in the burning, but rather as gold purified and cleansed by that which devoureth our impurities, but maketh great that which deserveth greatness. As to Robin——"

"Don't turn me into a fable, wife!" exclaimed Robin, playfully interrupting her:—"I am, in my own proper person, an AEsop as it is. There has been enough of all this for to-night: we will but pledge another cup to the health of Sir Walter, the Lady Constance, and their children—and then to bed; and may all sleep well whose hearts are innocent as yours, Barbara! and I hope I may add without presumption, purified as mine. You see, Springall, the earth that nourishes the rose may in time partake of its fragrance."

THE END.

LONDON: Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE.

* * * * *

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and inconsistent hyphenation. Obvious typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:

title page caption:

carved chair, which he leaned over pulpit-fashion, was seen the lean, lanky figure of Fleetwood[Fleetword].

page 13: added missing quote

"In mine!" ejaculated the Baronet with well-feigned astonishment; ["]you mistake, good Dalton, I have no interest

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her goodness to my child! Remember," he added, closing the door, ["]remember—one month, and Hugh Dalton!"

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around me grows darker each fair day I live. A bunch of violets was given me this morning; their fragance[fragrance] was delicious, yet I could not discern the little yellow germ

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"Nor I either," thought Lady Frances: "but, barbara,[Barbara] you might think—or—or—see perhaps——"

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"Robin!["] I came not here to talk of cormorants and gulls; I want to ask you a question, and I expect an honest

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"Then who is she?" he demanded; "I'll not stir in it uness[unless] I know all."

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used to be a safe place enough; but now that Sir Michael Livesay[Livesey]—regicide that he is!—abides so continually at

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"Pshaw, Robin! but is he indeed so red-nosed?["] You have often seen him, Captain."

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The Reverend Jonas Fleetwood[Fleetword] had set forth from the sole desire of "beholding him who was anointed with the oil of

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"Walter De Guerre!—an English christian[Christian] wedded to a French surname!—'tis strange, but let it pass, let it pass:

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"I thank you for your bounty, sir; but at present I feel inclined to sheathe, not draw my swoad[sword]."

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he had declared himself quite recovered, did she return to her station on the low fofa[sofa], beside her friend Lady Frances

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pictures; that, if the Rabbi would look, he would observe the hair and eyes to be much lighter.["]

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"I did hope, sir, that you would have left Cecil Place before this; Sir Wilmott[Willmott] Burrell will, I am certain, arrive

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she had observed both characters narrowy[narrowly], and was perfectly convinced of Burrell's worthlessness. She could

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feature, as it were, bursting with indignation, she looked like a youthful priestess denouncing vengeance on a sinful world.["]

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"And you will be happy; or if not, you will not curse him who has wrought your misery?["]

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"Touch her not,["] exclaimed Burrell, the brutality of his vile nature fully awakened at perceiving Walter attempt to

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breathe the air of this polluted nest," argued Dalton, all the father oveflowing[overflowing] at his heart; "if we delay,

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Hugh was prevented from finishing his sentence by the sudden entrance of Sir Wilmott[Willmott] Burrell, who appeared in the

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They had not gone three steps on their path when Sir Willmott's[Willmott's] voice arrested their progress.

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had not spent a day beneath the roof were[where] he was now a prisoner; that she had been any thing but worthy of the

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eyes upon the young Cavalier, who, when perfectly awake, perceived that his visiter[visitor] was dressed and armed as page 181: added missing quote

["]Lady Frances, I dare say, has," persisted Walter: "light o' lip, light o' sleep."

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["]We must not so mingle profane and sacred things," murmured Fleetword, placing his forefinger upon the tempting

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"What! spoil my garnishing!" exclaimed Grundy![,] "look at the frosting of that horn, and the device, the two doves—see'st

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sudden her lady wanted her to get some flowers, and she had only time to throw on her cardinal and run for them?[.]"

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Buccaneer and Sir Wilmott[Willmott] Burrell; merely observing that it had the effect of chafing both in no ordinary degree.

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for minstrelsy was not the fashion; and he almost began to thing[think] the disguise he had selected was an injudicious

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["]The old man shuddered, and said in an agitated voice—"Then, indeed, you will not do for me on this occasion."

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and faithfulness must be a plant of forced and not of natural growth.["]

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or other; but you, my Lord," he added, pointedly, ["]will have no difficulty in finding him out."

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"Sit down, my good sir; compose yourelf[yourself]—you are much agitated—I pray you be composed."

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engaged, and the garden free from visiters[visitors]. He looked from the window; it was one of the loveliest days of summer—a

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"Do but bury that!" said Robin: ["]I would stay and do it, but that I must to the Nest at once."

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down in the dingle, and the beast is driving up the fold as if he were a man[.]"

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["]Then Barbara, whose blood was streaming from her wound, sprang to my bosom—sweet girl!—and hung, as I thought,

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["]I carried her round the chapel, and sank with her into the vault, where I had been concealed—that which contains the

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didn't pray more, going that length of road, than you, and I, and all the [the] crew of the Fire-fly put together, have prayed

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clanked against each other impatient of moisture—"Mother, take but little["] for you have need of prayer; that will stifle

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the hair from my ears, that I may hear distinctly. Did you mean, young woman[,] that Sir Robert was distraught—mad?"

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effects of terror and astonishment, looked like the sybil[sibyl] whose spells and orgies have distracted nature by some terrible

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"Sir Willmot[Willmott] Burrell," said Dalton, walking to where he stood, beaten down and trampled, yet full of poison as an

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tripped with a light step on her inqusiitive[inquisitive] mission: "I will now go to my father's chamber;" and thither she went,

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and the maid Barbara. Well, girls have queer fancies!—Who'd ha' thought she'd ha' fancied Robin?["]—though he's a brave

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"They will do very nicely indeed, Conny," replied the old man, with an approving smile; ["]and as for you, Master Walter,

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asked to be buried at East-church[East-Church], because that was nearer what he called the Gull's Nest Crag than the old church

THE END