Perhaps the most famous of the gates of England, Dover has always worn a warlike mien.  Less formidable than renowned Gibraltar, there is a look of grim efficiency about her heights, an air of masked authority about the windy galleries hung in her cold grey chalk, something of Roman competence about the proud old gatehouse on the Castle Hill.  Never in mufti, never in gaudy uniform, Dover is always clad in “service” dress.  A thousand threats have made her porterage a downright office, bluntly performed.  And so those four lean years, that whipped the smile from many an English hundred, seem to have passed over the grizzled Gate like the east wind, leaving it scatheless.  About herself no change was visible.  As we leaned easily upon the giant parapet of the Admiralty Pier, watching the tireless waves dance to the cappriccio of wind and sun, there was but little evidence to show that the portcullis, recently hoist, had for four years been down.  Under the shadow of the Shakespeare Cliff the busy traffic of impatient Peace fretted as heretofore.  The bristling sentinels were gone:  no craft sang through the empty air:  no desperate call for labour wearied tired eyes, clawed at strained nerves, hastened the scurrying feet:  no longer from across the Straits came flickering the ceaseless grunt and grumble of the guns.  The wondrous tales of nets, of passages of arms, of sallies made at dawn—­mortal immortal exploits—­seemed to be chronicles of another age.  The ways and means of War, so lately paramount, were out of sight.  As in the days before, the march of Trade and caravan of Pleasure jostled each other in the Gate’s mouth.  Only the soldierly aspect of the place remained—­Might in a faded surcoat, her shabby scabbard hiding a loose bright blade....

The steamer was up to time.

When four o’clock came she was well in sight, and at fourteen minutes past the hour the rattle of the donkey-engine came to a sudden stop, and a moment later the gangways were thrust and hauled into their respective positions.

Berry and I stood as close to the actual points of disembarkation as convenience and discretion allowed, while Jill hovered excitedly in the background.

As the passengers began to descend—­

“Now for it,” said my brother-in-law, settling his hat upon his head.  “I feel extremely nervous and more ill at ease than I can ever remember.  My mind is a seething blank, and I think my left sock-suspender is coming down.  However ...  Of course, it is beginning to be forcibly what they call ‘borne in upon’ me that we ought to have brought some barbed wire and a turnstile.  As it is, we shall miss about two-thirds of them.  Here’s your chance,” he added, nodding at a stout lady with a green suit-case and a defiant glare.  “I’ll take the jug and bottle department.”

I had just time to see that the object of his irreverence was an angular female with a brown paper parcel and a tumbler, when my quarry gained terra firma and started in the direction of the train.