Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-dayBesant, Walter
General
Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day
Besant, Walter
Fraud -- Fiction; Isles of Scilly (England) -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction
'I know all about Alexander Selkirk. He lived alone on Juan Fernandez,
having been put ashore by Captain Stradling, of the "Cinque Ports." He
had been four years and four months on the island when Captain Woodes
Rogers found him. He was clothed in goat-skin. He built two huts with
pimento-trees, and covered them with long grass and lined them with
the skin of goats. He made fire by rubbing two sticks together on his
knee. And he lived by catching goats. You mean, Roland Lee,' she said,
with great seriousness, 'that some day or other all these old people
will die--my great-great-grandmother, Justinian, Dorcas, and even
Peter and Chessun, and that then I shall be alone on the island. That
would be terrible. But it will not happen in that way. I am sure it
will not, because it would be so very terrible. We are in the Lord's
hand, and it will not be allowed.'
The young man coloured and dropped his eyes. There certainly was not a
single girl of all those whom he knew in London who could have said
such a thing so simply and so sincerely. Not the youngest girl fresh
from the most religious teaching could say such a thing. Yet they go
to church a good deal oftener than Armorel, whose chances were only
once a week, and then only when the weather was fine. This it is to be
a Scillonian, and to believe what you hear in church. Roland had no
reply to make. Even to hint that faith so simple and so complete was
rare would have been cruel and wicked.
'You have quoted Woodes Rogers,' he said presently. 'Have you read
that good old navigator? It is not often that one finds a girl quoting
from Woodes Rogers.'
'Oh! I do not read much. There is a bookcase full of books; but I only
read the voyages. There is a whole row of them. Woodes Rogers,
Shelvocke, Commodore Anson, Wallis, Carteret, and Cook--and more
besides. I like Carteret best, because his ship was so small and so
crazy, and his men so few and so weak, and yet he would keep on
traversing the ocean as long as he could, and discovered a great deal
more than his commander, who cowardly deserted him.'
'There are other things in the world besides voyages--and other
books.'
'I learned the other things at school. There was geography--the world
is only the Scilly Islands spread out big--and history, too. You would
be surprised to find what a lot of English history there is that
belongs to Scilly. Queen Elizabeth built the Star Fort--you've seen
the Star Fort on the Garrison. There is Charles the First's Castle, on
Tresco, all in ruins; and, down below it, Cromwell's Castle, which I
will show you. And Charles the Second stayed here. Oh! and there was
the Spanish Armada; I must not forget that, because of another
great-great-far-off-great-grandfather, three hundred years ago, who
was wrecked here.'
'How was that?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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