Tell men of high condition
That rule affairs of state,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate;
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.
Tell Wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness--
Tell Wisdom she entangles
Herself in over-wiseness;
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.
JOSHUA SILVESTER
Robin had, doubtless, good reasons for the hint he had given Barbara,
that she might soon again see the Buccaneer, and that she would do well
to use that forbearance towards him which she had so kindly and so
invariably practised towards the Ranger. After leaving her, as we have
stated, in safety at one of the entrances to Cecil Place, he proceeded
to the Gull's Nest. His first inquiries were concerning the boy who had
contrived to steal a passage on board the Fire-fly from France to
England, and who had pretended dumbness. How the youth got on board his
vessel, Dalton could not imagine; although, when the discovery was made,
his feigning the infirmity we have mentioned succeeded so well, that the
Buccaneer absolutely believed he could neither hear nor speak, and
sympathised with him accordingly. The indignation of Dalton was quickly
roused by the outrage described by Robin Hays: he was, moreover, much
exasperated that such a deception should have been successfully
practised on himself. Nothing is so sure to anger those who duly value
their penetration, as the knowledge that they have been duped by those
they consider inferior to themselves: indeed, the best of us are more
ready to pardon bare-faced wickedness than designing cunning;--we may
reconcile ourselves to the being overpowered by the one, but scarcely
ever to the being over-reached by the other.
Springall had quitted Cecil Place the morning after his encounter with
Major Wellmore, of whom he persisted in speaking as "the strong
spectre-man;" and neither Robin's entreaties nor Dalton's commands could
prevail on or force him again to take up his abode within the house.
"I know not why I should remain," he said; "the girls flout and laugh at
my 'sea-saw ways,' as they call them; and though Barbara is a trim
craft, well-built and rigged too, yet her quiet smile is worse to me
than the grinning of the others. I'll stay nowhere to be both frightened
and scouted: the Captain engaged me to weather the sea, not the land,
and I'd rather bear the cat a-board the Fire-fly, or even a lecture in
the good ship Providence, than be land-lagged any longer."
He was present in the room at the Gull's Nest when Robin recounted to
the Buccaneer the peril in which Barbara had been placed; and the young
sailor speedily forgot the meek jesting of the maiden in the magnitude
of her danger.