When the song was fairly finished, Robin arose to depart, for he had been long anxious to proceed on his way, though the scene we have described, and the conversation we have recorded, had passed within the compass of an hour. They all pressed him to remain. Even the bluff landlord tempted him with the offer of a pint of Canary, an offer he would not himself under any circumstances have declined. Robin, however, bade them a courteous farewell; but he had hardly reached the outskirts of the village, when he heard a light step, and felt a light hand press upon his shoulder. He turned round, and the blithe smile of mine hostess of the Oliver's Head beamed upon his painted face. "Robin Hays!" she said, "I would advise you never to sing when you go mumming; you did well enough till then; but, though the nightingale hath many notes, the voice is aye the same. The gentleman you were speering after, dropped this while making some change in his garments; and it looks so like a love-token, that I thought, as you were after him, you would give it him, poor youth! and my benison with it." "Yes," replied the Ranger, taking from her the very lock of hair which the Cavalier had severed, with his own hand, from among the tresses of Constantia. "I'll give it him when I can find him; yet, had you not better wrap it up in something? It pains the heart to see such as this exposed to the air, much less the eyes of any body in the world." Maud wrapped it in a piece of paper, and Robin placed it carefully in a small pocket-book. "The devil's as bright in your eyes still, Maud, as it was when you won poor Jack Roupall's heart, and then jilted him for a rich husband. I did not think any one would have found me out." "If I did sell myself," replied the landlady, "I have had my reward"--the colour faded from her cheek as she spoke--"as all will have who go the same gait. But ye ken, Bobby, it was not for my ain sake, but that my poor mother might have a home in her auld age--and so she had, and sure that ought to make me content." The tears gathered in her eyes, and the Ranger loudly reproached himself for unkindness, and assured her he meant no harm. "I am sure o' that; but when any one evens Jack to me, it brings back the thought of my ain North to my heart, and its words to my tongue, which is no good now, as it becomes me to forget both." "God bless you, Maud!" said Robin, shaking her affectionately by the hand: "God bless you! and if any ask after the Ironsides, see you say nothing of the young gentleman, who is as dear to me as my heart's blood; and do not tell to any, even of our own set, that I passed this way; for it's hard to tell who's who, or what's what, these times." "So it is," replied the dame, smiling through tears; "and now God be wi' ye, Robin!" And presently he heard her voice carolling a North country ballad, as she returned to her own house.