trenchant things he meant one day to thunder into human ears.  Always of a fine figure, his bearing grew more dauntless and graceful,—­the dangers of the sea taught him self-control,—­the swift changes of the sky gave him the far-off rapt expression and keen flash of his eyes,—­the pitiful sorrows of the poor, in which, as he had elected to be one of them, he was bound to share, had deepened the sympathetic lines round his delicate mouth, and had bestowed upon his whole countenance that look which is seldom seen save in the classic marbles—­the look of being one with, and yet above mankind.  All the different classes of people with whom he had managed to associate had called him “gentleman”, a name he had gently but firmly repudiated.  “Call me a Man, and let me deserve the title!” he would say smilingly, and his “mates” hearing this would eye each other askance, and whisper among themselves “that he was a gentleman for all that, though no doubt he had come down in the world and had to work for his living.  And no shame to him as he gave himself no airs, and could turn a hand to anything.”  And so the time moved on, and he remained in the Cornish fishing village till his book was finished.  Then he suddenly went up to London;—­and after a few days’ absence came back again, and went contentedly on with the fishing once more.

A month or so later, one night when the blackness of the skies was so dense that it could almost be felt, it chanced that he and his companions were far out at sea in their little smack, which lay becalmed between two darknesses—­the darkness of the rolling water, and the darkness of the still heaven.  Little waves lapped heavily against the boat’s side, and the only glimpse of light at all was the yellow flicker of the lamp that hung from the mast of the vessel, casting a tremulous flicker on the sombrous tide, when all at once a great noise like the crash of thunder, or the roll of cannon, echoed through the air, and a meteor more brilliant than an imperial crown of diamonds, flared through the sky from height to depth, and with a blazing coruscation of flying stars and flame, dropped hissingly down into the sea.  The fishermen startled, all looked up—­the heavy black nets dropped from their brown arms just as they were about to pull in.

“A sign of strife!” said one.

“Ay, ay!  We shall hev a war maybe!”

Aubrey leaned far over the boat’s side, and looked out into the dense blackness, made blacker than ever by the sudden coming and going of the flaming sky-phenomenon,—­and half unconsciously he murmured, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth,—­I come not to send peace, but a sword!” And he lost himself in dreams of the past, present, and future,—­till he was roused to give a hand in the dragging up of the nets, now full of glistening fish with silvery bodies and ruby eyes,—­and then his thoughts took a different turn and wandered off as far back as the Sea of Galilee