"You have sworn an oath, for which I should exact, I think, the sum of three shillings and four-pence, Jack the Rover; but, I fear me, thou hast not wherewithal to satisfy the law, even in a small thing, until thou offerest thy neck unto the halter as a sacrifice. But did 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----"