MacMillan's Reading Books Part 10

[Note: _A wet sheet_. The _sheet_ is the rope fastened to the lower corner of a sail to retain it in position.]

ON THE LOSS OF THE 'ROYAL GEORGE.'

Toll for the brave!

The brave that are no more; All sunk beneath the wave, Fast by their native sh.o.r.e!

Eight hundred of the brave, Whose courage well was tried, Had made the vessel heel, And laid her on her side.

A land breeze shook the shrouds, And she was overset; Down went the 'Royal George,'

With all her crew complete.

Toll for the brave!

Brave Kempenfeldt is gone; His last sea-fight is fought; His work of glory done.

It was not in the battle; No tempest gave the shock; She sprang no fatal leak; She ran upon no rock.

His sword was in its sheath; His fingers held the pen, When Kempenfeldt went down, With twice four hundred men.

Weigh the vessel up, Once dreaded by our foes!

And mingle with our cup, The tear that England owes.

Her timbers yet are sound, And she may float again, Full-charged with England's thunder, And plough the distant main.

But Kempenfeldt is gone, His victories are o'er; And he and his eight hundred Shall plough the wave no more.

COWPER.

[Note: _The Royal George_. A ship of war, which went down with Admiral Kempenfeldt and her crew off Spithead in 1782, while undergoing a partial careening.]

AN ESCAPE.

After we had rowed, or rather driven, about a league and a half, as we reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us, and plainly bade us expect our end. In a word, it took us with such a fury that it overset the boat at once; and, separating us as well from the boat as from one another, gave us not time hardly to say, "O G.o.d!"

for we were all swallowed up in a moment.

Nothing can describe the confusion of thought which I felt when I sunk into the water; for though I swam very well, yet I could not deliver myself from the waves, so as to draw breath, till that wave having driven me, or rather carried me a vast way on towards the sh.o.r.e, and having spent itself, went back, and left me upon the land almost dry, but half dead from the water I took in. I had so much presence of mind as well as breath left, that, seeing myself nearer the mainland than I expected, I got upon my feet, and endeavoured to make on towards the land as fast as I could, before another wave should return, and take me up again. But I soon found it was impossible to avoid it; for I saw the sea come after me as high as a great hill, and as furious as an enemy, which I had no means or strength to contend with; my business was to hold my breath, and raise myself upon the water, if I could: and so by swimming to preserve my breathing, and pilot myself towards the sh.o.r.e, if possible; my greatest concern now being, that the sea, as it would carry me a great way towards the sh.o.r.e when it came on, might not carry me back again with it when it gave back towards the sea.

The wave that came upon me again, buried me at once twenty or thirty feet deep in its own body; and I could feel myself carried with a mighty force and swiftness towards the sh.o.r.e a very great way; but I held my breath, and a.s.sisted myself to swim still forward with all my might. I was ready to burst with holding my breath, when, as I felt myself rising up, so, to my immediate relief, I found my head and hands shoot out above the surface of the water; and though it was not two seconds of time that I could keep myself so, yet it relieved me greatly, gave me breath and new courage. I was covered again with water a good while, but not so long but I held it out; and finding the water had spent itself, and began to return, I struck forward against the return of the waves, and felt ground again with my feet. I stood still a few moments to recover breath, and till the water went from me, and then took to my heels, and run with what strength I had farther towards the sh.o.r.e. But neither would this deliver me from the fury of the sea, which came pouring in after me again, and twice more I was lifted up by the waves, and carried forwards as before, the sh.o.r.e being very flat.

The last time of these two had well near been fatal to me; for the sea having hurried me along as before, landed me, or rather dashed me against a piece of a rock, and that with such force as it left me senseless, and indeed helpless, as to my own deliverance; for the blow taking my side and breast, beat the breath, as it were, quite out of my body; and had it returned again immediately, I must have been strangled in the water; but I recovered a little before the return of the waves, and seeing I should be covered again with the water, I resolved to hold fast by a piece of the rock, and so to hold my breath, if possible, till the wave went back; now as the waves were not so high as at first, being near land, I held my hold till the wave abated, and then fetched another run, which brought me so near the sh.o.r.e that the next wave, though it went over me, yet did not so swallow me up as to carry me away, and the next run I took, I got to the main land, where, to my great comfort, I clambered up the clifts of the sh.o.r.e, and sat me down upon the gra.s.s, free from danger, and quite out of the reach of the water.

DEFOE'S _Robinson Crusoe_.

[Notes: _Daniel Defoe_, born 1663, died 1731. He was prominent as a political writer, but his later fame has rested chiefly on his works of fiction, of which 'Robinson Crusoe' (from which this extract is taken) is the most important.

"_Gave us not time hardly to say_." This to us has the effect of a double negative. But if we take "hardly" in its strict sense, the sentence is clear: "did not give us time, even with difficulty, to say."

(_at foot_)."_As_ I felt myself rising up, _so_ to my immediate relief." Note this use of _as_ and _so_, in a way which now sounds archaic.

_Run_. The older form, for which we would use _ran_.

"That with such force, _as_ it left me," &c. For _as_, we would now use _that_.

_Clifts of the sh.o.r.e_. Like clefts, broken openings in the sh.o.r.e.]

RULE BRITANNIA.

When Britain first, at Heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sung this strain: Rule, Britannia, rule the waves, Britons never will be slaves!

The nations, not so blessed as thee, Must in their turn to tyrants fall; While thou shalt flourish great and free, The dread and envy of them all.

Still more majestic shalt thou rise, More dreadful from each foreign stroke; As the loud blast that tears the skies, Serves but to root thy native oak.

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame: All their attempts to bend thee down Will but arouse thy generous flame; But work their woe and thy renown.