It was only when he said (with that air of reserved and funded
knowledge which gave such unfathomable depth to his irony, and made
his sayings so oracular)--"There's very different places in the world
to Linnet Flash"--that we began to be ashamed of our hasty enthusiasm,
and to think that it would be a pity to stop so short in our
adventurous career.
So we decided to go on; but the masterly way in which Mr. Rowe spoke
of the world made me think he must have seen a good deal of it, and
when we had looked our last upon the island, and had crept with
lowered mast under an old brick bridge where young ferns hung down
from the archway, and when we were once more travelling between flat
banks and coppices that gave us no shelter, I said to the
barge-master--"Have you ever been at sea, Mr. Rowe?"
"Seven_teen_ year in the Royal Navy," said Mr. Rowe, with a strong
emphasis upon _teen_, as if he feared we might do him the injustice of
thinking he had only served his Queen and country for seven.
For the next two hours Fred and I sat, indifferent alike to the
sunshine and the shore, in rapt attention to Mr. Rowe's narrative of
his experiences at sea under the flag that has
"Braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze.
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