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Show 20 PRINCESS MARY'S GIFT BOOK CHARLIE THE COX fierce light of morning. and they could not. keep him in bed. The soul of the old sea dog leapt to the call. but his ailing body held him down. He wanted to go out. \Vasu‘t he eox ‘? Had the boat ever gone out without him ? The sea takes some of our bravest and best. take. 21 Charlie it did not Not so sure is it that he who lives by the sword will perish by the sword, as that he who baulks the sea the sea will surely have for its prey. Charlie had battled with the giant time and again, but he has gone to sleep on the land. \Ve buried him to-day in the little cemetery looking on to the grey His house is one of the little places like children's Noah's arks which dot. the line of this hungry shore. He could hear everything and see a good d ‘al. ()ften he could hardly keep himself from crying and shouting aloud. In spirit he was out on the boiling surf, dipping. rising. stooping. going over, righting again. clamberiug back. exulting, glorying. getting nearer the ship. standing ott'her. rigging the "' traveller." and fetching men aboard in the " breeches." And then away from the rolling hulk. water that was more than half his element. The funeral was beautiful in its old simplicity. First a hymn at the door of the house in the little alley by the beach, " Safe in the arms of Jesus," with the cotIin on the ground and all standing round ; the sea quiet, hardly a breeze as soft as human breath moving its tranquil surface ; the deadly rival in its everlasting eoming and going making no triumphant clamour now the 5-1 warrior was down. Then the companions of his dangers, the crew of his boat, a group of stalwart fellows who have never known what it is to But be afraid, carrying him up the hill, shoulder high, each in his red stocking his poor dying body was down on the bed and his face was sickly scarlet. and sing ho. my lads, and haul through the white waves for home. *ap and his lifeebelt, emblems of how they had fought the sea and beaten it. Charlies volcanic soul did not go off to the deep ot' deeps on the big breakers and through the wild noises of the storm. After the great wind there came a great calm. He died later. The air was quiet and There were some of us whose eyes were wet, but if these brave boys wept at all, it was only for the helpless little ones left behind. For full of the odour of seaweed; banks of seaweed were on the shore, and Charlie they did not weep. the broken schooner was covered with brown wraek. like any rock of die. "then brave deeds have to be done, they will see its light, like a beacon that does not fail, over the mountains of the fiercest storm ; they the coast; the sky was round as the inside of a shell, and pale pink like the shadow of flame; the water was smooth, and land and sea lay like a sleeping child. In this broad and steady weather our little town was startled by the double shot again. \Ve went to the windows in surprise, and saw the red flag over the rocket house, which is the signal for the lifeboat. Charlie was dead. He had just breathed his last, and his rugged comrades, who know nothing of poetry, but are poets nevertheless to the deepest grain of them. had run up the flag mast-high (not half-mast) as signal to the Great Cox of all that here was a soul in the troubled waters of death waiting for the everlasting lifeboat to hear him to the eternal shore. His spirit is not dead for them-it cannot VllJWI will hear its voice above the thunder of the loudest waves. A full moon is shining to-night on the place of Charlie's rest, and if the old Norse story is true, that while the body lies in sight of the sea the spirit lives in the winds above it, Charlie is not done with his old enemy yet. He will come back to this sea-bound land in warning whispers of the mighty and mysterious power that lures men to itself. \ . Mllswli |