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.