KEPT HIS CHRISTMAS DAY

"Take aim, you noble musqueteers,
And shoot you round about;
Stand to it, valiant pikemen,
And we shall keep them out.
There's not a man of all of us
A foot will backward flee;
I'll be the foremost man in fight,
Says brave Lord Willoughby!"

Elizabethan Ballad.

It was the blessed Christmas afternoon. The light was fading down; the
even-song was done; and the good folks of Bideford were trooping home
in merry groups, the father with his children, the lover with his
sweetheart, to cakes and ale, and flapdragons and mummer's plays, and
all the happy sports of Christmas night. One lady only, wrapped close in
her black muffler and followed by her maid, walked swiftly, yet sadly,
toward the long causeway and bridge which led to Northam town.
Sir Richard Grenville and his wife caught her up and stopped her
courteously.

"You will come home with us, Mrs. Leigh," said Lady Grenville, "and
spend a pleasant Christmas night?"

Mrs. Leigh smiled sweetly, and laying one hand on Lady Grenville's arm,
pointed with the other to the westward, and said:

"I cannot well spend a merry Christmas night while that sound is in my
ears."

The whole party around looked in the direction in which she pointed.
Above their heads the soft blue sky was fading into gray, and here and
there a misty star peeped out: but to the westward, where the downs and
woods of Raleigh closed in with those of Abbotsham, the blue was webbed
and turfed with delicate white flakes; iridescent spots, marking the
path by which the sun had sunk, showed all the colors of the dying
dolphin; and low on the horizon lay a long band of grassy green. But
what was the sound which troubled Mrs. Leigh? None of them, with their
merry hearts, and ears dulled with the din and bustle of the town, had
heard it till that moment: and yet now--listen! It was dead calm. There
was not a breath to stir a blade of grass. And yet the air was full of
sound, a low deep roar which hovered over down and wood, salt-marsh and
river, like the roll of a thousand wheels, the tramp of endless armies,
or--what it was--the thunder of a mighty surge upon the boulders of the
pebble ridge.

"The ridge is noisy to-night," said Sir Richard. "There has been wind
somewhere."

"There is wind now, where my boy is, God help him!" said Mrs. Leigh: and
all knew that she spoke truly. The spirit of the Atlantic storm had sen