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<h2> CHAPTER XXIII </h2>
<h3> LOVE MILITANT </h3>
<p>So far so good. But that noble and exalted condition of the youthful mind
which is to itself pure wisdom's zenith, but to folk of coarse maturity
and tough experience “calf-love,” superior as it is to words and reason,
must be left to its own course. The settled resolve of a middle-aged man,
with seven large-appetited children, and an eighth approaching the shores
of light, while baby-linen too often transmitted betrays a transient
texture, and hose has ripened into holes, and breeches verify their name,
and a knock at the door knocks at the heart—the fixed resolution of
such a man to strike a bold stroke, for the sake of his home, is worthier
of attention than the flitting fancy of boy and girl, who pop upon one
another, and skip through zigzag vernal ecstasy, like the weathery
dalliance of gnats.</p>
<p>Lieutenant Carroway had dealt and done with amorous grace and attitude,
soaring rapture, and profundity of sigh, suspense (more agonizing than
suspension), despair, prostration, grinding of the teeth, the hollow and
spectral laugh of a heart forever broken, and all the other symptoms of an
annual bill of vitality; and every new pledge of his affections sped him
toward the pledge-shop. But never had he crossed that fatal threshold; the
thought of his uniform and dignity prevailed; and he was not so mean as to
send a child to do what the father was ashamed of.</p>
<p>So it was scarcely to be expected that even as a man he should sympathize
deeply with the tender passion, and far less, as a coast-guardsman, with
the wooing of a smuggler. Master Robin Lyth, by this time, was in the
contraband condition known to the authorities as love; Carroway had found
out this fact; but instead of indulging in generous emotion, he made up
his mind to nab him through it. For he reasoned as follows; and granting
that reason has any business on such premises, the process does not seem
amiss.</p>
<p>A man in love has only got one-eighth part of his wits at home to govern
the doings of his arms, legs, and tongue. A large half is occupied with
his fancy, in all the wanderings of that creature, dreamy, flimsy,
anchoring with gossamer, climbing the sky with steps of fog, cast into
abysms (as great writers call it) by imaginary demons, and even at its
best in a queer condition, pitiful, yet exceeding proud. A quarter of the
mental power is employed in wanting to know what the other people think;
an eighth part ought to be dwelling upon the fair distracting object; and
only a small eighth can remain to attend to the business of the solid day.
But in spite of all this, such lads get on about as well as usual. If
Bacchus has a protective power, Venus has no less of it, and possibly is
more active, as behooves a female.</p>
<p>And surely it was a cold-blooded scheme, which even the Revenue should
have excised from an honest scale of duties, to catch a poor fellow in the
meshes of love, because he was too sharp otherwise. This, however, was the
large idea ripening in the breast of Carroway.</p>
<p>“To-night I shall have him,” he said to his wife, who was inditing of
softer things, her eighth confinement, and the shilling she had laid that
it would be a boy this time. “The weather is stormy, yet the fellow makes
love between the showers in a barefaced way. That old fool of a tanner
knows it, and has no more right feeling than if he were a boy. Aha, my
Robin, fine robin as you are, I shall catch you piping with your Jenny
Wren tonight!” The lieutenant shared the popular ignorance of simplest
natural history.</p>
<p>“Charles, you never should have told me of it. Where is your feeling for
the days gone by? And as for his coming between the showers, what should I
have thought of you if you had made a point of bringing your umbrella? My
dear, it is wrong. And I beg you, for my sake, not to catch him with his
true love, but only with his tubs.”</p>
<p>“Matilda, your mind is weakened by the coming trial of your nerves. I
would rather have him with his tubs, of course; they would set us up for
several years, and his silks would come in for your churching. But
everything can not be as we desire. And he carries large pistols when he
is not courting. Do you wish me to be shot, Matilda?”</p>
<p>“Captain Carroway, how little thought you have, to speak to me in that
way! And I felt before dinner that I never should get over it. Oh, who
would have the smugglers on her mind, at such a time?”</p>
<p>“My dear, I beg your pardon. Pray exert your strength of mind, and cast
such thoughts away from you—or perhaps it will be a smuggler. And
yet if it were, how much better it would pay!”</p>
<p>“Then I hope it will, Charles; I heartily hope it will be. It would serve
you quite right to be snaring your own son, after snaring a poor youth
through his sweetheart.”</p>
<p>“Well, well, time will show. Put me up the flat bottle, Tilly, and the
knuckle of pork that was left last night. Goodness knows when I shall be
back; and I never like to rack my mind upon an empty stomach.”</p>
<p>The revenue officer had far to go, and was wise in providing provender.
And the weather being on the fall toward the equinox, and the tides
running strong and uncertain, he had made up his mind to fare inland,
instead of attempting the watery ways. He felt that he could ride, as
every sailor always feels; and he had a fine horse upon hire from his
butcher, which the king himself would pay for. The inferior men had been
sent ahead on foot, with orders to march along and hold their tongues. And
one of these men was John Cadman, the self-same man who had descended the
cliff without any footpath. They were all to be ready, with hanger and
pistol, in a hole toward Byrsa Cottage.</p>
<p>Lieutenant Carroway enjoyed his ride. There are men to whom excitement is
an elevation of the sad and slow mind, which otherwise seems to have
nothing to do. And what finer excitement can a good mind have than in
balancing the chances of its body tumbling out of the saddle, and evicting
its poor self?</p>
<p>The mind of Charles Carroway was wide awake to this, and tenderly anxious
about the bad foot in which its owner ended—because of the
importance of the stirrups—and all the sanguine vigor of the heart
(which seemed to like some thumping) conveyed to the seat of reason little
more than a wish to be well out of it. The brave lieutenant holding place,
and sticking to it through a sense of duty, and of the difficulty of
getting off, remembered to have heard, when quite a little boy, that a man
who gazes steadily between his horse's ears can not possibly tumble off
the back. The saying in its wisdom is akin to that which describes the
potency of salt upon a sparrow's tail.</p>
<p>While Carroway gloomily pounded the road, with reflection a dangerous
luxury, things of even deeper interest took their course at the goal of
his endeavors. Mary Anerley, still an exile in the house of the tanner, by
reason of her mother's strict coast-guard, had long been thinking that
more injustice is done in the world than ought to be; and especially in
the matter of free trade she had imbibed lax opinions, which may not be
abhorrent to a tanner's nature, but were most unbecoming to the daughter
of a farmer orthodox upon his own land, and an officer of King's
Fencibles. But how did Mary make this change, and upon questions of public
policy chop sides, as quickly as a clever journal does? She did it in the
way in which all women think, whose thoughts are of any value, by allowing
the heart to go to work, being the more active organ, and create large
scenery, into which the tempted mind must follow. To anybody whose life
has been saved by anybody else, there should arise not only a fine image
of the preserver, but a high sense of the service done to the universe,
which must have gone into deepest mourning if deprived of No. One. And
then, almost of necessity, succeeds the investment of this benefactor to
the world at large with all the great qualities needed for an exploit so
stupendous. He has done a great deed, he has proved himself to be gallant,
generous, magnanimous; shall I, who exist through his grand nobility,
listen to his very low enemies? Therefore Robin was an angel now, and his
persecutors must be demons.</p>
<p>Captain Lyth had not been slow to enter into his good luck. He knew that
Master Popplewell had a cultivated taste for rare old schnapps, while the
partner of his life, and labor, and repose, possessed a desire for the
finer kinds of lace. Attending to these points, he was always welcome; and
the excellent couple encouraged his affection and liberal goodwill toward
them. But Mary would accept no presents from him, and behaved for a long
time very strangely, and as if she would rather keep out of his way. Yet
he managed to keep on running after her, as much as she managed to run
away; for he had been down now into the hold of his heart, searching it
with a dark lantern, and there he had discovered “Mary,” “Mary,” not only
branded on the hullage of all things, but the pith and pack of everything;
and without any fraud upon charter-party, the cargo entire was “Mary.”</p>
<p>Who can tell what a young maid feels, when she herself is doubtful?
Somehow she has very large ideas, which only come up when she begins to
think; and too often, after some very little thing, she exclaims that all
is rubbish. The key-note of her heart is high, and a lot of things fall
below harmony, and notably (if she is not a stupe), some of her own dear
love's expressions before she has made up her soul to love him. This is a
hard time for almost any man, who feels his random mind dipped into with a
spirit-gauge and a saccharometer. But in spite of all these indications,
Robin Lyth stuck to himself, which is the right way to get credit for
sticking.</p>
<p>“Johnny, my dear,” said Deborah Popplewell to her valued husband, just
about the time when bold Carroway was getting hot and sore upon the Filey
Road, yet steadily enlarging all the penance of return, “things ought to
be coming to a point, I think. We ought not to let them so be going on
forever. Young people like to be married in the spring; the birds are
singing, and the price of coal goes down. And they ought to be engaged six
months at least. We were married in the spring, my dear, the Tuesday but
one that comes next from Easter-day. There was no lilac out, but there
ought to have been, because it was not sunny. And we have never repented
it, you know.”</p>
<p>“Never as long as I live shall I forget that day,” said Popplewell; “they
sent me home a suit of clothes as were made for kidney-bean sticks. I did
want to look nice at church, and crack, crack, crack they went, and out
came all the lining. Debby, I had good legs in those days, and could
crunch down bark like brewers' grains.”</p>
<p>“And so you could now, my dear, every bit as well. Scarcely any of the
young men have your legs. How thankful we ought to be for them—and
teeth! But everything seems to be different now, and nobody has any
dignity of mind. We sowed broad beans, like a pigeon's foot-tread, out and
in, all the way to church.”</p>
<p>“The folk can never do such things now; we must not expect it of such
times, my dear. Five-and-forty years ago was ninety times better than
these days, Debby, except that you and I was steadfast, and mean to be so
to the end, God willing. Lord! what are the lasses that He makes now?”</p>
<p>“Johnny, they try to look their best; and we must not be hard upon them.
Our Mary looks well enow, when she hath a color, though my eyes might 'a
been a brighter blue if I never hadn't took to spectacles. Johnny, I am
sure a'most that she is in her love-time. She crieth at night, which is
nobody's business; the strings of her night-cap run out of their starch;
and there looks like a channel on the pillow, though the sharp young hussy
turns it upside down. I shall be upsides with her, if you won't.”</p>
<p>“Certainly it shall be left to you; you are the one to do it best. You
push her on, and I will stir him up. I will smuggle some schnapps into his
tea to-night, to make him look up bolder; as mild as any milk it is. When
I was taken with your cheeks, Debby, and your bit of money, I was never
that long in telling you.”</p>
<p>“That's true enow, Johnny; you was sarcy. But I'm thinking of the trouble
we may get into over at Anerley about it.”</p>
<p>“I'll carry that, lass. My back's as broad as Stephen's. What more can
they want for her than a fine young fellow, a credit to his business and
the country? Lord! how I hate them rough coast-riders! it wouldn't be good
for them to come here.”</p>
<p>“Then they are here, I tell you, and much they care. You seem to me to
have shut your eyes since ever you left off tanning. How many times have I
told you, John, that a sneaking fellow hath got in with Sue? I saw him
with my own eyes last night skulking past the wicket-gate; and the girl's
addle-pate is completely turned. You think her such a wonder, that you
won't hearken. But I know the women best, I do.”</p>
<p>“Out of this house she goes, neck and crop, if what you say is true, Deb.
Don't say it again, that's a kind, good soul; it spoils my pipe to think
of it.”</p>
<p>Toward sundown Robin Lyth appeared, according to invitation. Dandy as he
generally was, he looked unusually smart this time, with snow-white ducks
and a velvet waistcoat, pumps like a dressing-glass, lace to his shirt,
and a blue coat with gold buttons. His keen eyes glanced about for Mary,
and sparkled as soon as she came down; and when he took her hand she
blushed, and was half afraid to look at him; for she felt in her heart
that he meant to say something, if he could find occasion; but her heart
did not tell her what answer she would make, because of her father's grief
and wrath; so she tried to hope that nothing would be said, and she kept
very near her good aunt's apron-string. Such tactics, however, were doomed
to defeat. The host and hostess of Byrsa Cottage were very proud of the
tea they gave to any distinguished visitor. Tea was a luxury, being very
dear, and although large quantities were smuggled, the quality was not,
like that of other goods so imported, equal or superior to the fair
legitimate staple. And Robin, who never was shy of his profession,
confessed that he could not supply a cup so good.</p>
<p>“You shall come and have another out-of-doors, my friend,” said his
entertainer, graciously. “Mary, take the captain's cup to the bower; the
rain has cleared off, and the evening will be fine. I will smoke my pipe,
and we will talk adventures. Things have happened to me that would make
you stare, if I could bring myself to tell them. Ah yes, I have lived in
stirring times. Fifty years ago men and women knew their minds; and a dog
could eat his dinner without a damask napkin.”</p>
<p>Master Popplewell, who was of a good round form, and tucked his heels over
one another as he walked (which indicates a pleasant self-esteem), now lit
his long pipe and marched ahead, carefully gazing to the front and far
away; so that the young folk might have free boot and free hand behind
him. That they should have flutters of loving-kindness, and crafty little
breaths of whispering, and extraordinary gifts of just looking at each
other in time not to be looked at again, as well as a strange sort of in
and out of feeling, as if they were patterned with the same zigzag—as
the famous Herefordshire graft is made—and above all the rest, that
they should desire to have no one in the world to look at them, was to be
expected by a clever old codger, a tanner who had realized a competence,
and eaten many “tanner's pies.” The which is a good thing; and so much the
better because it costs nothing save the crust and the coal. But instead
of any pretty little goings on such as this worthy man made room for, to
tell the stupid truth, this lad and lass came down the long walk as far
apart and as independent of one another as two stakes of an espalier.
There had not been a word gone amiss between them, nor even a thought the
wrong way of the grain; but the pressure of fear and of prickly
expectation was upon them both, and kept them mute. The lad was afraid
that he would get “nay,” and the lass was afraid that she could not give
it.</p>
<p>The bower was quite at the end of the garden, through and beyond the
pot-herb part, and upon a little bank which overhung a little lane. Here
in this corner a good woman had contrived what women nearly always
understand the best, a little nook of pleasure and of perfume, after the
rank ranks of the kitchen-stuff. Not that these are to be disdained; far
otherwise; they indeed are the real business; and herein lies true test of
skill. But still the flowers may declare that they do smell better. And
not only were there flowers here, and little shrubs planted sprucely, but
also good grass, which is always softness, and soothes the impatient eyes
of men. And on this grass there stood, or hung, or flowered, or did
whatever it was meant to do, a beautiful weeping-ash, the only one
anywhere in that neighborhood.</p>
<p>“I can't look at skies, and that—have seen too many of them. You
young folk, go and chirp under the tree. What I want is a little rum and
water.”</p>
<p>With these words the tanner went into his bower, where he kept a good
store of materials in moss; and the plaited ivy of the narrow entrance
shook with his voice, and steps, and the decision of his thoughts. For he
wanted to see things come to a point, and his only way to do it was to get
quite out of sight. Such fools the young people of the age were now!</p>
<p>While his thoughts were such, or scarcely any better, his partner in life
came down the walk, with a heap of little things which she thought needful
for the preservation of the tanner, and she waddled a little and turned
her toes out, for she as well was roundish.</p>
<p>“Ah, you ought to have Sue. Where is Sue?” said Master Popplewell. “Now
come you in out of the way of the wind, Debby; you know how your
back-sinew ached with the darning before last wash.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Popplewell grumbled, but obeyed; for she saw that her lord had his
reasons. So Mary and Robin were left outside, quite as if they were
nothing to any but themselves. Mary was aware of all this manoeuvring, and
it brought a little frown upon her pretty forehead, as if she were cast
before the feet of Robin Lyth; but her gentleness prevailed, because they
meant her well. Under the weeping-ash there was a little seat, and the
beauty of it was that it would not hold two people. She sat down upon it,
and became absorbed in the clouds that were busy with the sunset.</p>
<p>These were very beautiful, as they so often are in the broken weather of
the autumn; but sailors would rather see fair sky, and Robin's fair heaven
was in Mary's eyes. At these he gazed with a natural desire to learn what
the symptoms of the weather were; but it seemed as if little could be made
out there, because everything seemed so lofty: perhaps Mary had forgotten
his existence.</p>
<p>Could any lad of wax put up with this, least of all a daring mariner? He
resolved to run the cargo of his heart right in, at the risk of all
breakers and drawn cutlasses; and to make a good beginning he came up and
took her hand. The tanner in the bower gave approval with a cough, like
Cupid with a sneeze; then he turned it to a snore.</p>
<p>“Mary, why do you carry on like this?” the smuggler inquired, in a very
gentle voice. “I have done nothing to offend you, have I? That would be
the last thing I would ever do.”</p>
<p>“Captain Lyth, you are always very good; you never should think such
things of me. I am just looking at a particular cloud. And who ever said
that you might call me 'Mary'?”</p>
<p>“Perhaps the particular cloud said so; but you must have been the cloud
yourself, for you told me only yesterday.”</p>
<p>“Then I will never say another word about it; but people should not take
advantage.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“Captain Lyth, you are not at all considering what you say: those officers
do not want me—they want you.”</p>
<p>“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—”</p>
<p>“Oh, I was not at all aware of that; surely you had better go on with
thinking of them.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“What sort of a sensation do I seem to be? A foolish one, I suppose, like
all those many others.”</p>
<p>“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—”</p>
<p>“And not run any more cargoes on the coast?”</p>
<p>“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—”</p>
<p>“Hush! I am almost sure that I hear footsteps. Listen, just a moment.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“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 constitution; 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!”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>Mary made a bad hit here. This picture was not at all deterrent; so daring
are young men, and so selfish.</p>
<p>“Nothing of that sort should ever come to pass,” 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 appetite, and kiss you, and do both my
feet upon the scraper. 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.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“Poor I would only have to say just once, 'Robin, I will have you, and
begin to try to love you.'”</p>
<p>“I am afraid that it has been done long ago; and the thing that I ought to
do is to try and help it.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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 nobler 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 nobody (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.</p>
<p>Cadman, Ellis, and Dick 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 scrape, 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.</p>
<p>“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—”</p>
<p>“That's a dirty lie, Sir. In the king's name I arrest you.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>But Carroway counted his chicks too soon; or at any rate he overlooked a
little chick. For while he was making fine passes (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.</p>
<p>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 blustering 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.</p>
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