All this Laurence saw. It made a rather splendid picture, big with the drama of approaching storm. Yet he was persuaded something was lacking. As three days ago upon first entering the yellow drawing-room at Stoke Rivers, he had, after the first moment of surprise, instinctively looked for certain ornaments and pieces of furniture, and derived a singular satisfaction from the conviction that they still occupied their accustomed place--so now and here, though to his knowledge he had never before ridden across this piece of exposed and but half-reclaimed common-land, or seen the great view under its existing aspect,--he instinctively gazed seaward in search of that which should support his half-awakened memory, and complete the scene to his satisfaction. For surely--yes, surely--bowling up Channel, under crowded canvas, before the freshening breeze, he should behold a fleet of some eight or ten square-rigged East Indiamen, their carven poops standing high out of the water,--vessels of about a thousand tons' burden, laden with tea and spices, bales of delicate muslins and silks, flasks of utter, porcelain, ivory fans, bright-hued parrots, and unseemly, little apes. And as convoy of these rich cargoes, to secure them, their merchant captains and bronzed and sturdy crews, against the rapacity of privateers sweeping out from St. Malo and other ports of Northern France, he should behold--yes, surely he should--a couple of smart English frigates, square-rigged too, whose clean scrubbed decks and the black mouths of whose port holes displayed grim argument of cannon, ready for action should occasion so demand. The ships, hugging the land for greater safety from alert and hungry foes, seemed--while the wind filled the bellying sails, straining their tall masts, as they heeled upon that uneasy, blue-grey sea--like some flight of huge, golden-plumage birds; for all the saffron glory now streaming from beneath the gathering storm-clouds in the west must lie full on them.