n made within the last few hours, probably when the last
ebb began. If so, the mysterious craft had spent the whole of Christmas
Day in that snug berth; and he blamed himself for permitting his host's
festivities to detain him. Then he took a few bearings to mark the
spot, and fed the poor crippled ox with all the herbage he could gather,
resolving to come with a rope to-morrow, and lead him home, if possible,
as a Christmas present to M. Jalais.

CHAPTER LII

KIND ENQUIRIES

That notable year, and signal mark in all the great annals of England,
the year 1805, began with gloom and great depression. Food was scarce,
and so was money; wars, and rumours of worse than war; discontent of men
who owed it to their birth and country to stand fast, and trust in
God, and vigorously defy the devil; sinkings even of strong hearts, and
quailing of spirits that had never quailed before; passionate outcry for
peace without honour, and even without safety; savage murmurings at wise
measures and at the burdens that must be borne--none but those who lived
through all these troubles could count half of them. If such came now,
would the body of the nation strive to stand against them, or fall in
the dust, and be kicked and trampled, sputtering namby-pamby? Britannia
now is always wrong, in the opinion of her wisest sons, if she dares to
defend herself even against weak enemies; what then would her crime
be if she buckled her corselet against the world! To prostitute their
mother is the philanthropy of Communists.

But while the anxious people who had no belief in foreigners were
watching by the dark waves, or at the twilight window trembling (if ever
a shooting-star drew train, like a distant rocket-signal), or in their
sleepy beds scared, and jumping up if a bladder burst upon a jam-pot,
no one attempted to ridicule them, and no public journal pronounced that
the true British flag was the white feather. It has been left for times
when the power of England is tenfold what it was then, and her duties
a hundredfold, to tell us that sooner than use the one for the proper
discharge of the other, we must break it up and let them go to pot upon
it, for fear of hurting somebody that stuck us in the back.

But who of a right mind knows not this, and who with a wrong one
will heed it? The only point is that the commonest truisms come upon
utterance sometimes, and take didactic form too late; even as we shout
to our comrade prone, and beg