Hugh
Dalton ever bring you, or any man, into trouble yet?" continued Robin,
composing his comic features into a grave and quiet character.

"I can't say that he did."

"I am sure he has had opportunities enough."

"I'm not going to deny that Hugh's a fine fellow, Robin; but I remember,
long ago, ay, thirteen or fourteen years past, before he entered on the
regular buccaneering trade, there wasn't a firmer Cavalier amongst the
whole of us Kentish men. Blazes! how he fought at Marston! But a few
years' sunning off the hot Havannah either scorches the spirit out of a
man, or burns it in."

"And what reason have you to think that Hugh is not now a good
Cavalier?"

"Pshaw! he grows old, and it's no good trying to pull Oliver down. He's
charmed. Ay, you may laugh; but no one of us could have escaped the
bullet of Miles Syndercomb, to say nothing of dark John Talbot:--I tell
ye, he is spell-guarded. Hugh is a knowing one, and has some plan
a-foot, or he wouldn't keep beating about this coast as he does, after
being so long from it, and using every county but Sussex and Kent. I
wonder, too, what placed you, Master Robin, in Burrell of Burrell's
service: I thought you were a man of taste till then."

Robin again grinned; and, as his wide mouth literally extended from ear
to ear, his face looked, as it were, divided by some accident; so
separate did the chin appear from the upper portion of the countenance.

"If you wo'n't talk," growled out the trooper, "I hope you will pay
those who do so for your amusement."

"Thou wouldst have me believe, then, thou art no genuine disinterested
talker. Ah! Roupall, Roupall! acquaintance with courts has taught me,
that nature in the first place, and society in the second, have imposed
upon us mortals two most disagreeable necessities: the one is that of
eating; the other, that of talking. Now nature is a tyrant, and society
is a tyrant; and I, being a tyrant-hater----"

"'Slife, man--or mongrel--or whatever you choose to call your twisted
carcass," interrupted Roupall, angrily, "hold your jibber. I wonder Joan
Cromwell did not seize upon you, and keep you as her chief ape, while
you were making your courtly acquaintance. A pretty figure for courts,
truly!--ah! ah! ah!" As he laughed, he pointed his finger scornfully
towards Robin Hays, who, however little he might care to jest upon his
own deformity, was but ill inclined to tolerate those who even hinted at
his defects. As the troo