"Perhaps the particular cloud said so; but you must have been the cloud yourself, for you told me only yesterday."

"Then I will never say another word about it; but people should not take advantage."

"Who are people? How you talk! quite as if I were somebody you never saw before. I should like you just to look round now, and let me see why you are so different from yourself."

Mary Anerley looked round; for she always did what people liked, without good reason otherwise; and if her mind was full of clouds, her eyes had little sign of them.

"You look as lovely as you always do," said the smuggler, growing bolder as she looked at something else. "You know long ago what my opinion of you is, and yet you seem to take no notice. Now I must be off, as you know, to-night; not for any reason of my own, as I told you yesterday, but to carry out a contract. I may not see you for many months again; and you may fall in love with a Preventive man."

"I never fall in love with anybody. Why should I go from one extreme to the other? Captain Carroway has seven children, as well as a very active wife."

"I am not afraid of Carroway, in love or in war. He is an honest fellow, with no more brains than this ash-tree over us. I mean the dashing captains who come in with their cutters, and would carry you off as soon as look."

"Captain Lyth, you are not at all considering what you say: those officers do not want me--they want you."

"Then they shall get neither; they may trust me for that. But, Mary, do tell me how your heart is; you know well how mine has been for ever such a time. I tell you downright that I have thought of girls before--"

"Oh, I was not at all aware of that; surely you had better go on with thinking of them."

"You have not heard me out. I have only thought of them; nothing more than thinking, in a foolish sort of way. But of you I do not think; I seem to feel you all through me."

"What sort of a sensation do I seem to be? A foolish one, I suppose, like all those many others."

"No, not at all. A very wise one; a regular knowledge that I can not live without you; a certainty that I could only mope about a little--"

"And not run any more cargoes on the coast?"

"Not a single tub, nor a quarter bale of silk; except, of course, what is under contract now; and, if you should tell me that you can not care about me--"

"Hush! I am almost sure that I hear footsteps. Listen, just a moment."

"No, I will not listen to any one in the world but you. I beg you not to try to put me off. Think of the winter, and the long time coming; say if you will think of me. I must allow that I am not, like you, of a respectable old family. The Lord alone knows where I came from, or where I may go to. My business is a random and up-and-down one, but no one can call it disreputable; and if you went against it, I would throw it up.

There are plenty of trades that I can turn my hand to; and I will turn it to anything you please, if you will only put yours inside it. Mary, only let me have your hand; and you need not say anything unless you like."

"But I always do like to say something, when things are brought before me so. I have to consider my father, and my mother, and others belonging to me. It is not as if I were all alone, and could do exactly as I pleased. My father bears an ill-will toward free trade; and my mother has made bad bargains, when she felt sure of very good ones."

"I know that there are rogues about," Robin answered, with a judicial frown; "but foul play never should hurt fair play; and we haul them through the water when we catch them. Your father is terribly particular, I know, and that is the worst thing there can be; but I do not care a groat for all objections, Mary, unless the objection begins with you. I am sure by your eyes, and your pretty lips and forehead, that you are not the one to change. If once any lucky fellow wins your heart, he will have it--unless he is a fool--forever. I can do most things, but not that, or you never would be thinking about the other people. What would anybody be to me in comparison with you, if I only had the chance? I would kick them all to Jericho. Can you see it in that way? can you get hot every time you think of me?"

"Really," said Mary, looking very gently at him, because of his serious excitement, "you are very good, and very brave, and have done wonders for me; but why should I get hot?"

"No, I suppose it is not to be expected. When I am in great peril I grow hot, and tingle, and am alive all over. Men of a loftier courage grow cold; it depends upon the const.i.tution; but I enjoy it more than they do, and I can see things ten times quicker. Oh, how I wish I was Nelson!

how he must enjoy himself!"

"But if you have love of continual danger, and eagerness to be always at it," said Mary, with wide Yorkshire sense, much as she admired this heroic type, "the proper thing for you to do is to lead a single life.

You might be enjoying all the danger very much; but what would your wife at home be doing? Only to knit, and sigh, and lie awake."

Mary made a bad hit here. This picture was not at all deterrent; so daring are young men, and so selfish.

"Nothing of that sort should ever come to pa.s.s," cried Robin, with the gaze of the head of a household, "supposing only that my wife was you.

I would be home regularly every night before the kitchen clock struck eight. I would always come home with an appet.i.te, and kiss you, and do both my feet upon the sc.r.a.per. I would ask how the baby was, and carry him about, and go 'one, two, three,' as the nurses do, I would quite leave the government to put on taxes, and pay them--if I could--without a word of grumble. I would keep every rope about the house in order, as only a sailor knows how to do, and fettle my own mending, and carry out my orders, and never meddle with the kitchen, at least unless my opinion was sought for concerning any little thing that might happen to be meant for me."

"Well," exclaimed Mary, "you quite take my breath away. I had no idea that you were so clever. In return for all these wonders, what should poor I have to do?"

"Poor I would only have to say just once, 'Robin, I will have you, and begin to try to love you.'"

"I am afraid that it has been done long ago; and the thing that I ought to do is to try and help it."

What happened upon this it would be needless to report, and not only needless, but a vast deal worse--shabby, interloping, meddlesome and mean, undignified, unmanly, and disreputably low; for even the tanner and his wife (who must have had right to come forward, if anybody had) felt that their right was a shadow, and kept back as if they were a hundred miles away, and took one another by the hand and nodded, as much as to say: "You remember how we did it; better than that, my dear. Here is your good health."

This being so, and the time so sacred to the higher emotions, even the boldest intruder should endeavor to check his ardor for intrusion.

Without any inkling of Preventive Force, Robin and Mary, having once done away with all that stood between them, found it very difficult to be too near together; because of all the many things that each had for to say. They seemed to get into an unwise condition of longing to know matters that surely could not matter. When did each of them first feel sure of being meant only for the other n.o.bler one? At first sight, of course, and with a perfect gift of seeing how much loftier each was than the other; and what an extraordinary fact it was that in everything imaginable they were quite alike, except in the palpable certainty possessed by each of the betterness of the other. What an age it seemed since first they met, positively without thinking, and in the very middle of a skirmish, yet with a remarkable drawing out of perceptions one anotherward! Did Mary feel this, when she acted so cleverly, and led away those vile pursuers? and did Robin, when his breath came back, discover why his heart was glowing in the rabbit-hole? Questions of such depth can not be fathomed in a moment; and even to attempt to do any justice to them, heads must be very long laid together. Not only so, but also it is of prime necessity to make sure that every whisper goes into the proper ear, and abides there only, and every subtlety of glance, and every nicety of touch, gets warm with exclusive reciprocity. It is not too much to say that in so sad a gladness the faculties of self-preservation are weak, when they ought to be most active; therefore it should surprise n.o.body (except those who are so far above all surprise) to become aware that every word they said, and everything (even doubly sacred) that they did, was well entered into, and thoroughly enjoyed, by a liberal audience of family-minded men, who had been through pretty scenes like this, and quietly enjoyed dry memory.

Cadman, Ellis, and d.i.c.k Hackerbody were in comfortable places of retirement, just under the combing of the hedge; all waiting for a whistle, yet at leisure to enjoy the whisper, the murmur, or even the sigh, of a genuine piece of "sweet-hearting." Unjust as it may be, and hard, and truly narrow, there does exist in the human mind, or at least in the masculine half of it, a strong conviction that a man in love is a man in a sc.r.a.pe, in a hole, in a pitfall, in a pitiful condition, untrue for the moment to the brotherhood of man, and cast down among the inferior vessels. And instead of being sorry for him, those who are all right look down, and glory over him, with very ancient gibes. So these three men, instead of being touched at heart by soft confessions, laid hard hands to wrinkled noses.

"Mary, I vow to you, as I stand here," said Robin, for the fiftieth time, leading her nearer to the treacherous hedge, as he pressed her trembling hand, and gazed with deep ecstasy into her truthful eyes, "I will live only to deserve you, darling. I will give up everything and everybody in the world, and start afresh. I will pay king's duty upon every single tub; and set up in the tea and spirit line, with his Majesty's arms upon the lintel. I will take a large contract for the royal navy, who never get anything genuine, and not one of them ever knows good from bad--"

"That's a dirty lie, Sir. In the king's name I arrest you."

Lieutenant Carroway leaped before them, flourishing a long sword, and dancing with excitement, in this the supreme moment of his life. At the same instant three men came bursting through the hedge, drew hangers, and waited for orders. Robin Lyth, in the midst of his love, was so amazed, that he stood like a boy under orders to be caned.

"Surrender, Sir! Down with your arms; you are my prisoner. Strike to his Majesty. Hands to your side! or I run you through like Jack Robinson!

Keep back, men. He belongs to me."

But Carroway counted his chicks too soon; or at any rate he overlooked a little chick. For while he was making fine pa.s.ses (having learned the rudiments of swordsmanship beyond other British officers), and just as he was executing a splendid flourish, upon his bony breast lay Mary. She flung her arms round him, so that move he could not without grievously tearing her; and she managed, in a very wicked way, to throw the whole weight of two bodies on his wounded heel. A flash of pain shot up to his very sword; and down he went, with Mary to protect him, or at any rate to cover him. His three men, like true Britons, stood in position, and waited for their officer to get up and give orders.

These three men showed such perfect discipline that Robin was invited to knock them down, as if they had simply been three skittles in a row; he recovered his presence of mind and did it; and looking back at Mary, received signal to be off. Perceiving that his brave love would take no harm--for the tanner was come forth bl.u.s.tering loudly, and Mrs.

Popplewell with shrieks and screams enough to prevent the whole Preventive Service--the free-trader kissed his hand to Mary, and was lost through the bushes, and away into the dark.

CHAPTER XXIV

LOVE PENITENT

"I tell you, Captain Anerley, that she knocked me down. Your daughter there, who looks as if b.u.t.ter would not melt in her mouth, knocked down Commander Carroway of his Majesty's coastguard, like a royal Bengal tiger, Sir. I am not come to complain; such an action I would scorn; and I admire the young lady for her spirit, Sir. My sword was drawn; no man could have come near me; but before I could think, Sir, I was lying on my back. Do you call that const.i.tutional?"

"Mary, lof, however could you think it--to knock down Captain Carroway?"

"Father, I never did. He went down of himself, because he was flourishing about so. I never thought what I was doing of at all. And with all my heart I beg his pardon. What right had you, Sir, to come spying after me?"

This interview was not of the common sort. Lieutenant Carroway, in full uniform, was come to Anerley Farm that afternoon; not for a moment to complain of Mary, but to do his duty, and to put things straight; while Mary had insisted upon going home at once from the hospitable house of Uncle Popplewell, who had also insisted upon going with her, and taking his wife to help the situation.

A council had been called immediately, with Mistress Anerley presiding; and before it had got beyond the crying stage, in marched the brave lieutenant.

Stephen Anerley was reserving his opinion--which generally means that there is none yet to reserve--but in his case there would be a great deal by-and-by. Master Popplewell had made up his mind and his wife's, long ago, and confirmed it in the one-horse shay, while Mary was riding Lord Keppel in the rear; and the mind of the tanner was as tough as good oak bark. His premises had been intruded upon--the property which he had bought with his own money saved by years of honest trade, his private garden, his ornamental bower, his wife's own pleasure-plot, at a sacred moment invaded, trampled, and outraged by a scurvy preventive-man and his low crew. The first thing he had done to the prostrate Carroway was to lay hold of him by the collar, and shake his fist at him and demand his warrant--a magistrate's warrant, or from the crown itself. The poor lieutenant having none to show, "Then I will have the law of you, Sir,"

the tanner shouted; "if it costs me two hundred and fifty pounds. I am known for a man, Sir, who sticks to his word; and my attorney is a genuine bulldog."

This had frightened Carroway more than fifty broadsides. Truly he loved fighting; but the boldest sailor bears away at prospect of an action at law. Popplewell saw this, and stuck to his advantage, and vowed, until bed-time, satisfaction he would have; and never lost the sight of it until he fell asleep.