"I find them in the garden, For there's many here about; And often, when I go to plough, The ploughshare turns them out; For many a thousand men," said he, "Were slain in that great victory." 3 "Now tell us, what 'twas all about," Young Peterkin he cries; And little Wilhelmine looks up With wonder-waiting eyes; "Now tell us all about the war, And what they killed each other for." "It was the English," Kasper cried, "Who put the French to rout. But what they killed each other for, I could not well make out. But everybody said," quoth he, "That 'twas a famous victory. "My father lived at Blenheim then, Yon little stream hard by ; They burned his cottage to the ground, And he was forced to fly; So with his wife and child he fled, Nor had he where to rest his head. "With fire and sword the country round Was wasted far and wide, And many a tender mother then And new-born baby died. 20 25 30 35 40 45 But things like that, you know, must be They say it was a shocking sight, For many thousand bodies there Lay rotting in the sun. But things like that, you know, must be 50 "Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won, 55 And our good Prince Eugene. "Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!" "Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he, 66 And everybody praised the duke, Why, that I cannot tell," said he : "But 'twas a famous victory." 60 65 STORY OF A SHIPWRECK. I. THE STORM. 1. It was a murky confusion—here and there blotted with a colour like the colour of smoke from damp fuel-of flying clouds tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if she had lost her way and were frightened. There had been a wind all day, and it was rising then, with an extraordinary great sound. In another hour it had much increased, and the sky was more overcast. 2. As the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely overspreading the whole sky, it came on to blow harder and harder, until our horses could scarcely face the wind. Many times the leaders turned about, or came to a dead stop; and we were often in serious apprehension that the coach would be blown over. Sweeping gusts of rain came up before this storm like showers of steel, and at those times, when there was any shelter of trees or wall to be got, we were fain to stop, in a sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle. 3. When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had been in Yarmouth when the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never known the like of this or anything approaching to it. We came to Ipswich very late, having had to fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles out of London, and found a cluster of people in the market-place, who had risen from their beds in the night, fearful of falling chimneys. 4. Some of these, congregating about the inn-yard while we changed horses, told us of great sheets of lead being ripped off a churchtower, and flung into the street. Others told of country people coming in from neighbouring villages, who had seen great trees torn out of the earth, and whole ricks scattered about the roads and fields. Still there was no abatement of the storm. 5. As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this mighty wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and more terrific. Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips. When we did come within sight of it, the waves on the horizon, seen at intervals above the rolling abyss,' were like glimpses of another shore with towers and buildings. 6. At last we got into Yarmouth. I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea; staggering along the street, which was strewn with sand and sea-weed and with flying blotches of sea-foam; afraid of falling |