land,
    Very carefully and slow,
    Men of Bideford in Devon—­
    And he laid them on the ballast down below;
    And they blessed him in their pain
    That they were not left to Spain,
    To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

The boat sailed softly, steadily now, as if it would not jar the rhythm of the voice telling, with soft inflections, with long, rushing meter, the story of that other Revenge, of the men who had gone from these shores, under the great Sir Richard, to that glorious death.

    And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer
      sea,
    And not one moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three. 
    Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons
      came;
    Ship after ship, the whole night long, with their battle thunder and
      flame;
    Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and
      her shame;
    For some they sunk, and many they shattered so they could fight no
      more. 
    God of battles!  Was ever a battle like this in the world before?

As I listened, though I knew the words almost, by heart too, my eyes filled with tears and my soul with the desire to have been there, to have fought as they did, on the little Revenge one after another of the great Spanish ships, till at last the Revenge was riddled and helpless, and Sir Richard called to the master-gunner to sink the ship for him, but the men rebelled, and the Spaniards took what was left of ship and fighters.  And Sir Richard, mortally wounded, was carried on board the flagship of his enemies, and died there, in his glory, while the captains

         —­praised him to his face. 
    With their courtly Spanish grace.

So died, never man more greatly, Sir Richard Grenville, of Stow in Devon.

The crimson and gold of sunset were streaming across the water as she ended, and we sat silent.  The sailor’s face was grim, as men’s faces are when they are deeply stirred, but in his dark eyes burned an intensity that reserve could not bold back, and as he still stared at the girl a look shot from them that startled me like speech.  She did not notice.  She was shaken with the passion of the words she had repeated, and suddenly, through the sunlit, rippling silence, she spoke again.

“It’s a great thing to be a Devonshire sailor,” she said, solemnly.  “A wonderful inheritance—­it ought never to be forgotten.  And as for that man—­that Sir Richard Grenville Leigh—­he ought to carry his name so high that nothing low or small could ever touch it.  He ought never to think a thought that is not brave and fine and generous.”

There was a moment’s stillness and then I said, “Sally, my child, it seems to me you are laying down the law a little freely for Devonshire.  You have only been here four days.”  And in a second she was on her usual gay terms with the world again.