ct, where Dibdin was still
thundered in the ale-house, and manhood in a great degree measured by the
capacity to take liquor on board, as a ship takes ballast. There was a
profound affectation of deploring the sad fact that he drank as hard as
ever, among the men, and genuine pity expressed for him by the women of
Warbeach; but his fame was fresh again. As the Spring brings back its
flowers, Robert's presence revived his youthful deeds. There had not been
a boxer in the neighbourhood like Robert Eccles, nor such a champion in
all games, nor, when he set himself to it, such an invincible drinker. It
was he who thrashed the brute, Nic Sedgett, for stabbing with his
clasp-knife Harry Boulby, son of the landlady of the Pilot Inn; thrashed
him publicly, to the comfort of all Warbeach. He had rescued old Dame
Garble from her burning cottage, and made his father house the old
creature, and worked at farming, though he hated it, to pay for her
subsistence. He vindicated the honour of Warbeach by drinking a match
against a Yorkshire skipper till four o'clock in the morning, when it was
a gallant sight, my boys, to see Hampshire steadying the defeated
North-countryman on his astonished zigzag to his flattish-bottomed
billyboy, all in the cheery sunrise on the river--yo-ho! ahoy!

Glorious Robert had tried, first the sea, and then soldiering. Now let us
hope he'll settle to farming, and follow his rare old father's ways, and
be back among his own people for good. So chimed the younger ones, and
many of the elder.

Danish blood had settled round Warbeach. To be a really popular hero
anywhere in Britain, a lad must still, I fear, have something of a
Scandinavian gullet; and if, in addition to his being a powerful drinker,
he is pleasant in his cups, and can sing, and forgive, be freehanded, and
roll out the grand risky phrases of a fired brain, he stamps himself, in
the apprehension of his associates, a king.

Much of the stuff was required to deal King Robert of Warbeach the
capital stroke, and commonly he could hold on till a puff of cold air
from the outer door, like an admonitory messenger, reminded him that he
was, in the greatness of his soul, a king of swine; after which his way
of walking off, without a word to anybody, hoisting his whole stature,
while others were staggering, or roaring foul rhymes, or feeling
consciously mortal in their sensation of feverishness, became a theme for
admiration; ay, and he was fresh as an