Then leaning over the hatch-door, her rosy cheek half-resting on the
rough shoulder of her rough husband, was the pretty Mistress Maud, the
personification of rustic English beauty; then the picturesque grouping
of the old and worn, but still gallant and manly sailors--our friend of
the wooden legs a little in the fore-ground, supported by the quizzical
seaman, and a tall stiff bony-looking "Black Sal" of a woman on the
other, whose complexion was contrasted by a snow-white cap, somewhat
pointed at the top, which hardly concealed her grizzled hair. She was
both exhibiting and admiring in dumb show the telescope so lately in the
possession of our friend Robin; while Ned Purcell, a little dumpy,
grey-headed mariner, who had heretofore been considered the owner of the
best glass in Greenwich, was advancing, glass in hand, to decide which
was really the best without farther parley. As Robin was obliged to sing
his song twice, we may be excused for having given it once, though
certainly it received but little advantage from the miserable
accompaniment of the wretched instrument that had just been so gaily
adorned by the hands of Mistress Maud.
When the song was fairly finished, Robin arose to depart, for he had
been long anxious to proceed on his way, though the scene we have
described, and the conversation we have recorded, had passed within the
compass of an hour. They all pressed him to remain. Even the bluff
landlord tempted him with the offer of a pint of Canary, an offer he
would not himself under any circumstances have declined. Robin, however,
bade them a courteous farewell; but he had hardly reached the outskirts
of the village, when he heard a light step, and felt a light hand press
upon his shoulder. He turned round, and the blithe smile of mine hostess
of the Oliver's Head beamed upon his painted face.
"Robin Hays!" she said, "I would advise you never to sing when you go
mumming; you did well enough till then; but, though the nightingale hath
many notes, the voice is aye the same. The gentleman you were speering
after, dropped this while making some change in his garments; and it
looks so like a love-token, that I thought, as you were after him, you
would give it him, poor youth! and my benison with it."
"Yes," replied the Ranger, taking from her the very lock of hair which
the Cavalier had severed, with his own hand, from among the tresses of
Constantia. "I'll give it him when I can find him; yet, had you not
better wrap it up in something? It pains the heart to see such as this
exposed to the air, much less the eyes of any body in the world." Maud
wrapped it in a piece of paper, and Robin placed it carefully in a small
pocket-book.