The Gentleman A Romance of the Sea

Excerpt

OUR SEA

                    The Sea! the Sea!
                Our own home-land, the Sea!
  'Tis, as it always was, and still, please God, will be,
                    When we are gone,
                        Our own,
                 Possessing it for Thee,
               Ours, ours, and ours alone,
                  The Anglo-Saxon Sea.

The stripped, moon-shining, naked-bosomed Sea.

              No jerry-building here;
              No scenes that once were dear
  Beneath man's tawdry touch to disappear;
              Always the same, the Sea,
              Th' unstable-steadfast Sea.
  'Tis, as it always was, and still, please God, will be,
                    When we are gone,
                        Our own,
              Vice-regents under Thee,
              Ours, ours, and ours alone,
              The Anglo-Saxon Sea.

The mighty-furrowed, moody-minded Sea.

              New suns and moons arise;
              Perish old dynasties;
         For ever rise and die the centuries;
              Only remains the Sea,
              Our right of way, the Sea.
  'Tis, as it always was, and still, phase God, will be,
                   When we are gone,
                      Our own,
              Our heritage from Thee,
              Ours, ours, and ours alone,
              The Anglo-Saxon Sea.

Our good, grey, faithful, Saxon-loving Sea._

"Succeed, and you command the Irish Expedition," said the squat fellow.

"My Emperor!" replied the tall cavalry-man, saluted, and clanked away in the gloom.

* * * * *

A sweet evening, very fresh, the tide crashing at the foot of the cliff.

In the twilight, above Boulogne, a man was standing, hands behind him.

The moon lay on the water, making a broad white road that led from his feet across the flowing darkness West.

The dusk was falling. About him the earth grew dark; above him all was purity and pale stars.

Only the tumble of the tide, white-lipped on the beach beneath, stirred the silence; while one little dodging ship, black in the wake of the moon, told of some dare-devil British sloop, bluffing the batteries upon the cliff.

The rustle of the water beneath, its crashing rhythm and hiss as of breath intaken swiftly, soothed him. He fell into a waking dream.

It seemed to his wide eyes that the sea rose, heavenward as a wall; its foot set in foam, its summit on a level with his face. Against it a silver ladder leaned. He had but to mount that ladder to pluck the island-jewel, the desire of his heart these many years.

He reached a hand into the night as though to realise his wish; and even as he did so, the sloop barked....