Even his monument enshrines an adventure, as characteristic, one would imagine, as any in which he was ever engaged. Underneath the whole affair, at any rate, lurks a spice of the Irish wit which is said to have distinguished him, and to have made him an agreeable opponent and even victor. Holmes upon capturing a French vessel, found on board of it, so the story goes, an unfinished statue in marble, intended to be completed as one of Louis XIV of France, and to be then placed in the palace at Versailles. The sculptor who was engaged to carry out the work happened to be on board the ship, and it occurred to the ingenious Sir Robert that here was an excellent chance of obtaining a monument of himself at a low cost. So he compelled the artist to complete the figure as a portrait statue of himself, and then had it placed in the church of the town for which, notwithstanding his overbearing ways and erratic methods, he had done so much. If the likeness is a good one--and there seems reason to believe it is--it is not difficult to understand the character of the man it represents. In the strong featured, hard, and masterful face one easily traces evidence of the qualities which made him a terror to the Dutch, and one of the most successful of the legalised sea-rovers of the last half of the seventeenth century. In the life story of Sir Robert Holmes there is, indeed, enough of romance and adventure to make a shelf of novels of the type of _Westward Ho!_ were there but a new Kingsley to use the material. And as one stands out of the little harbour, on one’s way further west, long after the pleasant little town, low-lying but picturesque, has faded out of sight astern, it is the memory of this old sea dog, truculent no doubt, but an Englishman to the backbone, that remains in the mind, “routing the King’s enemies, and carrying fire and sword instead of merchandise, along the coasts of Holland and through the Channel, and across the wide Atlantic to the New World.” Chapter IV Southampton--Beaulieu River--Lymington To enter the generally placid stretch of sea known as Southampton Water, in the early morning of a summer’s day or at sunset, past the crooked nose of land on which Calshot Castle stands, whether it be aboard a Castle liner or a forty-footer, is an experience of great charm. We know of few wide stretches of sea water which are so beautiful and so interesting, or where the effects of morning mists and the rose and gold of sunset skies are seen with greater charm. And as one advances up the Channel past the mouth of the pretty Hamble River, and Netley towards Hythe, where so many bring up (though with small craft it is possible to sail on past Millbrook to Redbridge and enter the Test), glimpses are seen of the edge of the distant New Forest and the green-grey trimming to the Hythe shore.