Robin, when he quitted the Buccaneer, proceeded not towards his mother's house, but again entered the chamber in which Barbara lay: he paused, and listened to ascertain if she again slept. He heard no sound, and at length ventured to divide the drapery, and look within. The motion, slight as it was, was noticed by the gentle maid, who beckoned with her finger, and her lover was in an instant by her side.

"I shall be well—soon well again, Robin," she murmured; "and I know you will be glad when I am so."

Robin made no reply, but stood wondering at the exceeding beauty of the beloved object that lay upon that strange, but not ungraceful couch. He had heretofore only seen Barbara in the oddly-fashioned dress, and with the humble bearing of a servant; but now, reclining on piles of skins and velvets, her hair falling in unconstrained and untutored profusion over her white throat, and shrouding her slight figure, she seemed to him the embodying of all he had ever imagined as belonging to the exquisite creatures of other worlds. Sour and sarcastic as he was, there were few in that age who had more frequently dreamed of the pure and holy beings that people the imagination of richly-endowed minds. Solitude is the nurse of all that is good within us. The world stains what it touches; and the more we withdraw from it, the better we become. Robin knew much of its wickedness; but, fortunately, had ever sufficient leisure and sufficient loneliness for reflection. Never tell us, that a man can walk beneath the rainbow's arch, and not think of the power that placed it there! that he can stand on the tall cliff's peak, and not drink in the fullness of God's exceeding glory—that he can hear the small lambs bleat, or inhale the perfume of the hawthorn, without thankfulness to the great Author of all! Devoid of any thing like a settled creed, he still had many vague, yet sublime conceptions of the mightiness and the goodness of a Power that fills the universe with His presence. Many there are with such belief; and many, whose hearts aspire to a more defined and intimate knowledge of the Great Fountain of Life; and for lack of opportunity—for want of proper direction, either plunge amid the pitfalls and quagmires of infidelity, or are lost amid the equally dangerous fallacies of various and contradictory interpretations of the same perfect and beautiful creed. Happy was it for the Ranger that she he so truly loved was religious in its purest and simplest sense—gifted with that gentle and holy wisdom, which instructed her in the honest rule of right, and rendered her unobtrusively impervious to temptation.

"I shall be soon well again," she repeated; "and do not look so sadly on me, Robin; indeed I shall soon be well."

"Thank God for that, Barbara!" he replied. "I bless God that it is so!"

"Robin! Do you really mean that you do thank God: is it your heart, or your lips that speak?"

"As God sees me, I think that both speak, Barbara."

"Then," said the girl, "I bless God more for that than for the saving of my life. I pray daily for those to whom I owe much; but for you and my father I say double prayers."

"Because you think we need them doubly?" inquired the Ranger, smiling.

"Even so; for since I have lain here, not being able to talk much with that kind stranger, who has more than atoned for what she did by her present goodness to me, I have had time for reflection; and—and—I have prayed very much for you, Robin Hays."

"Perhaps," said the Ranger, (his strong and turbulent feelings struggling painfully in his bosom,) "perhaps, Barbara, your prayers are all you mean to give me?"

"Robin," replied the maiden, while a flush passed over her pale cheek, "you are often unjust; but I forgive it: for you are abroad in the world, which, I believe, makes people unkind. And yet I did not mean you were unkind, Robin. Now do not turn away so strangely. I would give the life that has been so lately restored to me, that your faith was as my faith,—that your God was my God."

The Ranger fell on his knees by the side of the couch, and clasping his hands energetically together, replied, not in a loud, but in a low, earnest tone,—

"Barbara, teach me your faith, and I will learn it—learn any thing from your lips: I will cast aside my waywardness—my nature shall be changed—I will become gentle as a babe. And as to your God, I am no heathen, Barbara, but an Englishman, and all so born know there is but One to worship!"

"Ay, but One," replied the gentle and thoughtful girl; "yet a wild, reckless temper like yours is ever verging to idolatry, to the formation of many gods. Do you not worship Mammon when you risk body and soul to procure ill-gotten gold?"

"Reformation is the work of time, and there will be time for it, Barbara, when you are better. I will sit during the whole length of the Sabbath-days, winter and summer all the same, from sunrise to sunset, and listen to the word of God: I will not speak, I will not look except to you, and you shall read to me from the beginning to the end, and explain, and pray: and even on week-days I will hear it for one hour each evening, from Monday till Saturday, week after week, till I understand what you expound. Will not that improve me, Barbara?"

A smile, succeeded by an expression of much anxiety, passed over her innocent countenance, and then she spoke.

"God knows, Robin, that I have much trouble—my father, I see, I feel, loves his ship better than any earthly thing; and though it would anger him to know it, yet I do wish from my heart the vessel would fade from the waters as a shadow from the green hill's side. He will never become a staid man—never set his heart on things above—never either be happy, or make me so, until no plank floats upon ocean that calls him master. Ah me, Robin! Mistress Cecil used to say that age brought wisdom; and, if so, methinks wisdom brings sorrow."

It was some minutes before the Ranger offered any comment on her words. At length he assured her how fully he agreed in believing that Dalton would be much more happy if his ship "faded," as she termed it, "from the waters; and yet," he added, "it would be as the separating of soul and body!"

"A fearful separation that would indeed be, and one I could not bear to think on. Ah, Robin! I felt death in a dream once, and once almost in reality;—and yet my dear father, he is the soul, and the ship the body—the worthless body that ties him to the earth!"

"And has Barbara no little fable of her own to make that come out prettily?"

"Ah, Robin! I think of fables, as you call them, as much as ever, but am not able to speak them now; so, good b'ye, Robin, and let not the promise you have made me be like the flower of the wild rock-rose, which blooms and blights within a single day. When we indeed sit together, and read and pray, remember the pledge you have now given freely to one who will labour to make you happy all the day long."

Robin again pressed his lips upon her hand, and left the chamber with feelings of deep joy and gratitude that mock description. He had, however, to witness a scene of a nature very different.

The last interview between him and his mother was brief, for duties towards those who lived could scarcely yield their influence even to those which the dying claimed at his hands. The kind and affectionate heart of the Ranger was chilled as he entered the small and scantily-furnished chamber in which his mother lay, suffering in body, but still more in mind. Had her son been a ministering angel, she could not have welcomed him with greater joy, although her eyes were dim, and her voice was almost inarticulate as she pressed her shrivelled lips to his cheek.

"Raise me up, Robin—Robin—and move that chest on my right. Gently, gently, Robin; it contains much that will make you rich when I am gone. It would have been hard if the poor widow had not her tithe out of those who came and went. I have sent for Mistress Cecil, but she has not come: she thinks little about the lone widow of the Crag."

"Mother," replied Robin, "her own troubles are many."

"Ah! she knows not what secrets are in the old woman's keeping. She comes not, and I have a story to tell that would be as poison to her—ay, to body and soul! You must hear it, Robin, if no one else will. But, first, hand me a drink of the strong waters. Ah, that will put fresh life into me! Let the preachers preach their fill, nothing rouses one like the strong waters!"

Robin did as she desired, but with evident unwillingness.

"Many years have gone," she continued, "yet, to the aged, many years appear as yesterday. I was sitting by the door of this very cottage, which had just been made public—for your poor father—(honest man that he was, far above your mother in wisdom and goodness)—your poor father, I say, had been drowned the winter before, and I was obliged to do something to keep the children, and so thought of making the cottage a public; well—I sat at the door, and you were in my arms."

The aged woman's mind appeared to wander for a few moments, as if she was calling her thoughts from a long distance.

"It was night, dark, dark night, and many runagades had been about the coast all day trafficking and trading and smuggling, and the gentry helping them, for things were not strict then:—it was pitch dark, with now and then a gleam of light from a bright cloud; and there came towards me a gentleman I knew full well—a gallant, handsome gentleman: he stood upon the rock that hangs over the sea, where the sea is ever wildest. Presently some of the strange-looking men joined him, and they talked and talked, though I heard them not, for the wind was whistling around me, and I was watching you asleep."

The woman again paused, but soon resumed her story.

"Well, as I was saying, they talked; but soon I heard a cry through the storm, and the next minute there was a gleam of light—I saw him struggling; but darkness fell again, and on a sudden, while you would clap your hands, came a scream for help. O God! O God! I hear it now!—now I hear it!—Robin, another drink of the strong waters, that will silence it!"

"Mother," said the Ranger, as he held the cup which her skinny fingers were extended to grasp, while her parched lips clanked against each other impatient of moisture—"Mother, take but little for you have need of prayer; that will stifle the cry far better than this."

"And I will pray," returned the woman, "when my tale is finished. There was but that one loud, loud scream, and a heavy splash in the ocean, and with it the darkness again passed: but, Robin Hays, Robin Hays, the men had passed too, and one of them returned no more! And why did he not? He had broad and fair lands, such as make people cling to their own country, but he came not back. Soon after, I heard the noise of oars, and—mind your mother now, Robin,—another man came to the cliff—to the brow of the same cliff—I saw him look down, and along the waves, and, all of a sudden, a pistol flash from the boat sprang through the darkness, and he who came last stood while you could count ten, and passed away. But mind again, Robin, he came with a weak step, and he went as a strong man."

Robin shuddered; his mother after a brief pause continued.

"Now, who think you, Robin—my child, Robin, who think you was the murdered man—and who think you was he who came last, and saw the murderers departing in peace—who? I will tell it, before my breath is for ever stopped: the one was Robert Cecil, and the other his father's son, the first-born of his own mother!"

"Oh God!" exclaimed Robin, adding in a muttering tone, "I see through it all, the hold that Dalton has over the wretched, wicked man! But could Dalton do this?"

"Did you say any thing of Dalton?" inquired Mother Hays, whose quickness of hearing appeared increased; "it was his ship that was off the coast, though I could not swear he was himself there. Such things, I have heard, were often done in those wild times, and it made a noise then, and Sir Robert seemed like one mad about his brother; though people did whisper, for they were set against one another to the knowledge of all, and of different parties. And in time the lands all fell to him; and the Parliament since, I heard, made out, that Sir Herbert, being a friend to the king, even if he were alive, shouldn't have his own, which was all made over to the present man. But, as sure as there is a God, so sure He is just! Is it not plain? Of all the fine boys his lady bore him, not one is left! And, as to the daughter, look, if she knew as much of Sir Willmott Burrell as I do, she'd make her night-posset with the mermaids before she'd wed him. Well, Robin, Sir Herbert had once a son—an only son, and, as his lady died in childbed, Sir Robert's wife had taken great delight in the boy, and brought him up with her own children; and a pretty boy it was, so fond of the sea! He would sit for an hour together on my knee, and always called me nurse, and used to play with you as if you were his equal, and call Mistress Cecil, that now is, his wife! Sweet lamb that he was! Robin, Robin, he went too; how, I never knew, but I guess: the murderer of the father thought he should be more safe if the boy was away, and he pretended grief, and his poor lady felt it. Now it is of that boy I would have spoken to Mistress Cecil, for my heart misgives me—"

Farther communication was interrupted by the entrance of Constantia's maid, who came to ascertain if the widow Hays were really dying.

"My lady has trouble enough of her own, the Lord knows; but she will leave watching by the bed-side of my poor distraught master, if she can render any aid."

"Robin, raise me up," exclaimed the dying woman, with a gesture of great impatience; "raise me up, Robin, and push the hair from my ears, that I may hear distinctly. Did you mean, young woman[,] that Sir Robert was distraught—mad?"

"Alack! yes," replied the girl; "mad, poor gentleman!"

"It is enough—enough—enough! I knew it would come in some shape; yet madness must be mercy to him!" Having so said, she sank back, while the serving wench stood in astonishment: and at length inquired, "What she meant?"

"She raves," was Robin's reply, drawing the girl out of the chamber: "give my humble duty to your lady, and tell her that the son of Mother Hays is with her, and that she lacks nothing the world can give her now." As the girl departed, Springall came to the door.

"Robin Hays! you must leave even your dying mother—something must be determined on. He is come! Listen to the guns at Sheerness, telling the island who has touched the soil on this side of the ferry."

Robin stood for a moment at the porch, and heard the booming of cannon heavily passing through the air, traversing the low downs, and roaring from crag to crag, as if rejoicing in liberty; the ships that lay out at sea sent forth a reply, and in a moment their flags were waving in the wind.

Robin returned for a moment to his mother's room.

"Mother," he said, "for one hour I must leave you, but I will send some one to watch by your bed-side. Pray to God, a God of mercy, who has but lately opened my heart: pray to Him, and He will answer. I will be with you soon—a hundred lives may rest upon that hour!"

His mother appeared scarcely conscious of what he said, but with her finger pointed to the chest.

A new, but a most unwelcome light had broken in upon the mind of the unhappy Ranger. The father of his beloved Barbara he had long known to be a reckless and a daring man, with the stains of many crimes upon his soul; but he had now the terrible knowledge that the Buccaneer was a cold-blooded and hired assassin, who for gold, for there could have been no other temptation—— The thought was perfect agony, yet the Ranger resolved to face the man he at once loved and dreaded, and boldly charge him with the act his parent in her dying moments had communicated.

"It will all be known," he thought; "there can be no pardon for the murderer—no peace for Barbara—the sinless child of sin!"