She sat in an
ecstasy, with closed eyes. She was, as she put it, indulging in
mental composition.
Verses composed while Riding by the Royal Mail.
"I've sailed at eve o'er Plymouth Sound
(For me it was a rare excursion)
Oblivious of the risk of being drown'd,
Or even of a more temporary immersion.
"I dream'd myself the Lady of the Lake,
Or an Oriental one (within limits) on the Bosphorus;
We left a trail of glory in our wake,
Which the intelligent boatman ascribed to phosphorus.
"Yet agreeable as I found it o'er the ocean
To glide within my bounding shallop,
I incline to think that for the poetry of motion
One may even more confidently recommend the Tantivy Gallop."
CHAPTER II.
I AM ENTERED AT COPENHAGEN ACADEMY.
Agreeable, too, as I found it to be whirled between the hedgerows
behind five splendid horses; to catch the ostlers run out with the
relays; to receive blue glimpses of the Channel to southward; to dive
across dingles and past farm-gates under which the cocks and hens
flattened themselves in their haste to give us room; to gaze back
over the luggage and along the road, and assure myself that the rival
coach (the Self-Defence) was not overtaking us--yet Falmouth, when
we reached it, was best of all; Falmouth, with its narrow streets and
crowd of sailors, postmen, 'longshoremen, porters with wheelbarrows,
and passengers hurrying to and from the packets, its smells of pitch
and oakum and canvas, its shops full of seamen's outfits and
instruments and marine curiosities, its upper windows where parrots
screamed in cages, its alleys and quay-doors giving peeps of the
splendid harbour, thronged--to quote Miss Plinlimmon again--"with
varieties of gallant craft, between which the trained nautical eye
may perchance distinguish, but mine doesn't.
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