Grimes looked up, and Tom looked up, too; for the voice was that of the Irishwoman who met them the day they went out together to Harthover.  She ordered Grimes to march off in the custody of the truncheon, who was to see that he devoted himself to the considerable task of sweeping out the crater of Etna.

Tom went back to St. Brandan’s Isle, and there found Ellie—­grown into a beautiful woman.  And he looked at her, and she looked at him; and they liked the employment so much that they stood and looked for seven years more, and neither spoke nor stirred.

At last they heard the fairy say, “Attention, children!  Are you never going to look at me again?”

They looked, and both of them cried out at once:  “You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby!  No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown quite beautiful now.”

“To you,” she said.  “But look again.”

“You are Mother Carey,” said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice.  For he had found out something which made him very happy, and yet frightened him more than all that he had ever seen.

And when they looked again she was neither of them, and yet all of them at once.

“My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there.”

And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blazing light; but the children could not read her name, for they were dazzled, and hid their faces in their hands.

“Not yet, young things, not yet,” said she, smiling.  And then she turned to Ellie.

“You may take him home with you on Sundays, Ellie.  He has won his spurs in the great battle, and become fit to be a man; because he has done the thing he did not like.”

* * * * *

Westward Ho!

“Westward Ho!” was published in 1855, and, on the whole, may be accepted as the most popular of all Charles Kingsley’s novels.  It is a story full of the life and stir of Elizabethan England, and its heroes and heroines are the stout-hearted Devonshire people whom Kingsley knew and loved so well.  Like most historical romances, “Westward Ho!” must not be accepted as history, in spite of the fact that its author was Regius Professor of History at Cambridge.  Kingsley’s whole-hearted and entirely creditable patriotism and his intense devotion to the established Church of England prevented his doing justice to Spain or looking with sympathy on Roman Catholicism. (See Newman, Vol.  XIII.) Kingsley never could refrain from preaching his own convictions, and while this often interfered with the art of the novelist, it gave a note of sincerity to all his work, and warmth and colour to his style.

I.—­How Amyas Came Home the First Time

One bright summer’s afternoon in the year 1575 a tall and fair boy came lingering along Bideford Quay, in his scholar’s gown, with satchel and slate in hand, watching wistfully the shipping and the sailors, till, just after he had passed the bottom of the High Street, he came to a group of sailors listening earnestly to someone who stood in the midst.  The boy, all alive for any sea news, must needs go up to them, and so came in for the following speech, delivered in a loud, bold voice, with a strong Devonshire accent.