The Story of the White-Rock Cove Part 15

Once in the Cove, my cousin asked me to land with him, requesting George and Ralph to leave us ash.o.r.e a little while.

"It must have been almost exactly here, I think," said Aleck, leading the way to the spot which I remembered only too vividly, and glancing round to a.s.sure himself that our companions were out of sight. "Willie, I want us to thank G.o.d here, on the very spot--there's no one to see us--let us kneel down."

We knelt together at the foot of the White Rock; Aleck, who was still very weak, leaning against me for support. They were only a few childish words he said, but they came from a full heart; and I never remember in later life any liturgical service in church or cathedral that stirred my feelings more deeply than that simple thanksgiving. Nor even now, after the lapse of many a long year, can I visit that little retired nook in the dear Braycombe coast, and hear the plash of the ripple, and the flap of the sea-gulls' wings, and the echoing murmurs of the sea in the caverns, without being carried back by a rush of tender recollection to that day when all Nature's sweet voices seemed to be uniting in one hymn of praise, taking up and beautifying and repeating the utterance of two little thankful hearts--

"We praise Thee, O G.o.d."

THE END