young master; give us a hand on the bar here." So I put my hands on to
the bar and pushed my best, walking beside him till my uncle called me
away. There were many ships there at the time, all a West Indian
convoy, and it was fine to see their great figureheads, and the brass
cannon at the ports, and to hear the men singing out aloft as they
shifted spars and bent and unbent sails. They were all very lofty
ships, built for speed; all were beautifully kept, like men-of-war,
and all of them had their house-flags and red ensigns flying, so that
in the sun they looked splendid. I shall never forget them.

After that, we went back to the inn, and climbed into another coach,
and drove for a long, long time, often very slowly, till we reached a
place near Newton Abbot, where there was a kind woman who put me to
bed (I was too tired to notice more). Then, the next morning, I
remember a strange man who was very cross at breakfast, so that the
kind woman cried till my uncle sent me out of the room. It is funny
how these things came back to me; it might have been only yesterday.

Late that afternoon we reached the south coast of Devon, so that we
had the sea close beside us until the sun set. I heard the sea, as I
thought, when we reached my uncle's house, at the end of the twilight;
but they told me that it was a trout-stream, brawling over its
boulders, and that the sea was a full mile away. My aunt helped to put
me to bed, but I was too much excited to sleep well. I lay awake for a
long, long time, listening to the noise of the brook, and to the wind
among the trees outside, and to the cuckoo clock on the landing
calling out the hours and half-hours. When I fell asleep I seemed to
hear the sea and the crying out of the sailors. Voices seemed to be
talking close beside me in the room; I seemed to hear all sorts of
things, strange things, which afterwards really happened. There was a