WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Next morning Jack and Rose went out for a walk along the beach. Out in
the little bay a man and a woman were sailing and enjoying themselves,
for the sound of their laughter came across the water to the shore. Jack
was just remarking to Rose that they in the boat were carrying a good
deal of sail, when a sudden squall upset the boat. The man was not a
swimmer, but as he came to the surface he managed to seize upon the
overturned boat and support himself.
When the accident happened, Browning shouted to some boatmen farther up
the beach to come with a boat quickly, and, throwing off coat, vest and
shoes, he plunged in and swam toward where the boat capsized. Rose was
left on the beach, wringing her hands and crying. The accident was not
far from shore, and Jack was a strong swimmer. He reached the spot in
time to grasp the arm of the woman as she came to the surface. She was
half smothered by the water, and completely rattled, for the fear of
death was full upon her, so she madly clung to Browning. He made the best
struggle that he could, but the woman carried him under before the boat
arrived. As the two rose to the surface, the boatmen managed to seize
them and draw them into the boat, but the woman was senseless, and
Browning was almost so, and fearfully exhausted.
As the boat was rowed to the shore and Rose saw Browning lying limp and
helpless in it, she went off in a dead faint, and was so upset and
nervous that it was determined to return to London that evening. When out
of sight of the place and of the sea, she rapidly recovered, and was soon
her old self, but she reproached Jack, and with an adorable smile told
him she never would have believed that he would, on the very first
opportunity, go off, half kill himself for another woman, and compel her
to make such a spectacle of herself down on the beach before all those
villagers.
The old days began again in London; Browning and Rose were all in all to
each other, and Sedgwick and Grace were likewise in the seventh heaven of
love's ecstasy.
In Nevada parlance, Sedgwick would have wagered two to one with Browning,
on the measure of their respective happiness.
The happy couples visited every point of interest in and about London.
One day they went through Westminster Abbey. Sedgwick hardly spoke during
the visit, and as they entered the carriage to return home, Rose said:
"Mr. Sedgwick, I am disappointed; I thought our great national chamber of
death would greatly interest you."
"So did I," said Browning, "but I suppose a foreigner cannot understand
just how English-born people feel toward that spot."
Sedgwick smiled faintly, and said: "You mistake me, Miss Rose, and you
too, Jack. That Abbey is the only thing I have seen in England that I am
jealous or envious of. I see your great works and say to myself, 'We will
rival all that.' I read your best books and say of myself, 'they are a
part of our inheritance as well as yours.' But that Abbey is a monument,
sufficient to itself, it seems to me, to make every Englishman afraid to
ever falter in manhood or to fail in honor. It is filled with lessons of
splendor. There slumber great kings and princes, and queens who were
beautiful in life, but there under the seal of death a higher royalty is
recognized--the royalty of great hearts and brains; the royalty that
comes to the soldier when in the face of death he saves his country; the
royalty of the statesman who turns aside the sword and opens new paths
and possibilities to his countrymen; the royalty of the poet when he sets
immortal thoughts to words, which once spoken, go sounding down the ages
in music forever. And these should have their final couches spread beside
the couches of kings, for each when called can answer, 'I, too, was
royal.'
"And when other nations dispute for recognition with Englishmen, your
countrymen have but to point to that consecrated spot and say: 'There is
our country's record. It is chiseled there by the old sculptor, Death; go
and study it; it will carry you through thirty generations of men; from
it you will learn how Englishmen were strong enough, while subduing the
world, to subdue themselves; to create to themselves laws and a
literature of their own, until they at last held aloft the banners of
civilization when nearly all the world beside was dark; there is the
record of England's soldiers, statesmen, poets, scholars; read the
immortal list, and then if you will, come back and renew the argument.'
"That pile ought to be enough to make every Englishman a true man, a
brave man, a gentleman, for to me the names there make the most august
scroll ever written.
"Listening within those walls, it seemed to me I could hear mingling all
the voices of the mighty dead; the battle-cry of soldiers, the appeals of
statesmen; the edicts of kings; the hymns of churchmen, the rhythm of
immortal numbers as from poets' harps they were flung off; the glory of
a thousand years shone before my eyes; the splendor of almost everything
that is immortal in English history was before me.
"That place ought to impress all who visit it with what mortals must do,
if they would embalm their memories upon the world.
"You are right to reverence and to feel a solemn joy at that place; it is
one of the few real splendors of this old world."
"Forgive me, Mr. Sedgwick," said Rose; "I should have known your
thoughts." While she was speaking, Grace, under the lap-robe, pressed her
lover's hand.