314 HOMEWARD BOUND. 



ill a single uiglit, unless the French learnt to keep a better 

 look-out in time of war than they did in time of peace. 



Just inside us lay two or three ironclads ; strong and ugly : 

 imtidy, too, to a degree shocking to English eyes. All sorts 

 of odds and ends were hancrins^ over the side, and ahout the 

 rigging ; the yards were not properly squared, and so forth ; 

 till as old sailors would say the ships had no more decency 

 about them than so many collier-brigs. 



Beyond them were arsenals, docks, fortifications, of which 

 of course we could not judge ; and backing all, a cliff, some 

 200 feet high, much quarried for building- stone. An ugly 

 place it is to look at ; and, I should think, an ugly place to 

 get into, with the wind anywhere between N.W. and N.E. ; 

 an artificial and expensive luxury, built originally as a mere 

 menace to England, in days when France, which has had too 

 long a moral mission to fight some one, thought of fighting 

 us, who only wished to live in peace with our neighbours. 

 Alas ! alas ! " Tu I'a voulu, George Dandin." She has fought 

 at last : but not us. 



Out of Cherbourg we steamed again, sulky enough; for 

 the delay would cause us to get home on the Sunday evening 

 instead of the Sunday morning ; and ran northward for the 

 iSTeedles. With what joy we saw at last the white wall of 

 the island glooming dim ahead. With what joy we first 

 discerned that huge outline of a visage on Freshwater Cliff, so 



