The Story
of Saville
XI.
Came a season when Nature from smiling ceased and lay with a deathstruck stare
Drowned on the beach with oozy weeds and brown wet shells in her hair,
With her vesture drenched and her poor bruised feet lying all stark and bare,
And leviathan billows bemocked their prey, and mangled and mouthed her there.
And the wind demoniac howled around the house, scarce more than a hut,
Where Kyrle and Saville and their happiness were safe from the tempest shut,
And the cheery lamp shed a kindly glow over the humble place,
And the nets and the bits of coral and spar lent it a simple grace.
“If only this cottage were ours, Saville! if this our idyl might be
Played for a white half-year divine down by the ice fringed sea!
But alas! the sable curtain must drop, and the actors perforce must flee!”
Then the wife, who crouched on the rug, her head on her husband’s knee,
