Chapter 54

BRUNTSEA DEFEATED

Little sleep had I that night. Such conflict was in my mind about the proper thing to be done next, and such a war of the wind outside, above and between the distant uproar of the long tumultuous sea. Of that sound much was intercepted by the dead bulk of the cliff, but the wind swung fiercely over this, and rattled through all shelter. In the morning the storm was furious; but the Major declared that his weather-glass had turned, which proved that the gale was breaking. The top of the tide would be at one o'clock, and after church we should behold a sight he was rather proud of--the impotent wrath of the wind and tide against his patent concrete.

"My dear, I scarcely like such talk," Mrs. Hockin gently interposed. "To me it seems almost defiant of the power of the Lord. Remember what happened to poor Smeaton--at least I think his name was Smeaton, or Stanley, was it? But I dare say you know best. He defied the strength of the Lord, like the people at the mouth of their tent, and he was swallowed up."

"Mary, my dear, get your prayer-book. Rasper's fly is waiting for us, and the parson has no manners. When he drops off, I present to the living; and I am not at all sure that I shall let George have it. He is fond of processions, and all that stuff. The only procession in the Church of England is that of the lord of the manor to his pew. I will be the master in my own church."

"Of course, dear, of course; so you ought to be. It always was so in my father's parish. But you must not speak so of our poor George. He may be 'High-Church,' as they call it; but he knows what is due to his family, and he has a large one coming."

We set off hastily for the church, through blasts of rain and buffets of wind, which threatened to overturn the cab, and the seaward window was white, as in a snowstorm, with pellets of froth, and the drift of sea-scud. I tried to look out, but the blur and the dash obscured the sight of every thing. And though in this lower road we were partly sheltered by the pebble ridge, the driver was several times obliged to pull his poor horse up and face the wind, for fear of our being blown over.

That ancient church, with its red-tiled spire, stands well up in the good old town, at the head of a street whose principal object now certainly is to lead to it. Three hundred years ago that street had business of its own to think of, and was brave perhaps with fine men and maids at the time of the Spanish Armada. Its only bravery now was the good old church, and some queer gables, and a crypt (which was true to itself by being buried up to the spandrels), and one or two corners where saints used to stand, until they were pelted out of them, and where fisher-like men, in the lodging season, stand selling fish caught at Billingsgate. But to Bruntsea itself the great glory of that street was rather of hope than of memory.