Robin grasped his hands convulsively together--shook back the hair that
curled over his forehead, as if it prevented his seeing clearly--his
breathing became still more painfully distinct--large drops of moisture
burst upon his brow--his tongue moved, but he could utter no sound--his
under lip worked in fearful convulsion--and, despite Dalton's efforts to
restrain him, he sprang to the side of the couch with the bound of a red
deer, and falling on his knees, succeeded in exclaiming,-"She lives! she lives!"
The sweet sleeper at once awoke; the long dark lashes separated, and the
mild hazel eye of Barbara turned once more upon Robin Hays; a weak smile
separated lips that were as white as the teeth they sheltered, as she
extended her hand towards the Ranger. But, as if the effort was too
much, her eyes again closed; and she would have looked as if asleep in
death, but that Robin kissed her hand with a respectful feeling that
would have done honour to men of higher breeding. The maiden blood
tinged her cheek with a pale and gentle colour--the hue that tints the
inner leaves of a blush rose.
The Buccaneer had been a silent spectator of this scene, and it had
taught him a new lesson--one, too, not without its bitterness. When
Robin, with more discretion than could have been expected from him,
silently withdrew into the outer room, he beheld Dalton standing in an
attitude of deep and painful thought near its furthermost entrance. As
the Ranger approached, his heart swelling with an overflowing of joy and
gratitude--his head reeling with sensations so new, so undefinable, that
he doubted if the air he breathed, the earth he trod on, was the same as
it had been but an hour, a moment before--yet suffering still from
previous agony, and receiving back Barbara as an offering from the
grave, that might have closed over her;--as the Ranger approached the
Buccaneer, in a frame of mind which it is utterly impossible to define,
Dalton threw upon him a look so full of contempt, as he glanced over his
diminutive and disproportioned form, that Robin never could have
forgotten it, had it not passed unnoticed in the deep feeling of joy and
thankfulness that possessed his whole soul. He seized the Skipper's hand
with a warmth and energy of feeling that moved his friend again towards
him. The generous heart is rarely indifferent to the generous-hearted.
Dalton gave back the pressure, although he turned away the next moment
with a heavy sigh.
Ah! it is a common error with men to believe that women value beauty as
much as it is valued by themselves. Such a feeling as that his daughter
entertained for Robin Hays, Dalton, even in his later years, could no
more understand than an eagle can comprehend the quiet affection of the
cooing ring-dove for its partner: the one would glory in sailing with
his mate in the light of the tropical sun, would scream with her over
the agonies of a dying fawn, and dip the beaks of their callow young in
blood; the other, nested in some gentle dell, the green turf beneath
watered by a brook, rippling its cadences to his sweet, though
monotonous, melody--would peel for his companion the husk from the
ripening corn, and shadow his brood from the noonday heat. Yet the love
of both is perfect, according to its kind.