to have their niece, and had often wanted to have her
altogether; but the farmer would never hear of that.

CHAPTER XV

CAUGHT AT LAST

While these little things were doing thus, the coast from the mouth of
the Tees to that of Humber, and even the inland parts, were in a great
stir of talk and work about events impending. It must not be thought
that Flamborough, although it was Robin's dwelling-place--so far as he
had any--was the principal scene of his operations, or the stronghold
of his enterprise. On the contrary, his liking was for quiet coves near
Scarborough, or even to the north of Whitby, when the wind and tide
were suitable. And for this there were many reasons which are not of any
moment now.

One of them showed fine feeling and much delicacy on his part. He knew
that Flamborough was a place of extraordinary honesty, where every
one of his buttons had been safe, and would have been so forever; and
strictly as he believed in the virtue of his own free importation,
it was impossible for him not to learn that certain people thought
otherwise, or acted as if they did so. From the troubles which such
doubts might cause, he strove to keep the natives free.

Flamburians scarcely understood this largeness of good-will to them.
Their instincts told them that free trade was every Briton's privilege;
and they had the finest set of donkeys on the coast for landing it. But
none the more did any of them care to make a movement toward it. They
were satisfied with their own old way--to cast the net their father
cast, and bait the hook as it was baited on their good grandfather's
thumb.

Yet even Flamborough knew that now a mighty enterprise was in hand. It
was said, without any contradiction, that young Captain Robin had laid
a wager of one hundred guineas with the worshipful mayor of Scarborough
and the commandant of the castle, that before the new moon he would land
on Yorkshire coast, without firing pistol or drawing steel, free goods
to the value of two thousand pounds, and carry them inland safely. And
Flamborough believed that he would do it.

Dr. Upround's house stood well, as rectories generally contrive to do.
No place in Flamborough parish could hope to swindle the wind of its
vested right, or to embezzle much treasure of the sun, but the parsonage
made a good effort to do both, and sometimes for three days together got
the credit of succeeding. And the dwellers therein, who felt the edge
of the diff