The Battle of the Strong | Page 3

Gilbert Parker
usually lived in England.

PROEM
There is no man living to-day who could tell you how the morning
broke and the sun rose on the first day of January 1800; who walked in
the Mall, who sauntered in the Park with the Prince: none lives who
heard and remembers the gossip of the moment, or can give you the
exact flavour of the speech and accent of the time. Down the long aisle
of years echoes the air but not the tone; the trick of form comes to us
but never the inflection. The lilt of the sensations, the idiosyncrasy of
voice, emotion, and mind of the first hour of our century must now pass
from the printed page to us, imperfectly realised; we may not know
them through actual retrospection. The more distant the scene, the more

uncertain the reflection; and so it must needs be with this tale, which
will take you back to even twenty years before the century began.
Then, as now, England was a great power outside these small islands.
She had her foot firmly planted in Australia, in Asia, and in America--
though, in bitterness, the American colonies had broken free, and only
Canada was left to her in that northern hemisphere. She has had, in her
day, to strike hard blows even for Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. But
among her possessions is one which, from the hour its charter was
granted it by King John, has been loyal, unwavering, and
unpurchasable. Until the beginning of the century the language of this
province was not our language, nor is English its official language
to-day; and with a pretty pride oblivious of contrasts, and a simplicity
unconscious of mirth, its people say: "We are the conquering race; we
conquered England, England did not conquer us."
A little island lying in the wash of St. Michael's Basin off the coast of
France, Norman in its foundations and in its racial growth, it has been
as the keeper of the gate to England; though so near to France is it, that
from its shores on a fine day may be seen the spires of Coutances, from
which its spiritual welfare was ruled long after England lost Normandy.
A province of British people, speaking still the Norman-French that the
Conqueror spoke; such is the island of Jersey, which, with Guernsey,
Alderney, Sark, Herm, and Jethou, form what we call the Channel Isles,
and the French call the Iles de la Manche.

Volume 1.

CHAPTER I
In all the world there is no coast like the coast of Jersey; so treacherous,
so snarling; serrated with rocks seen and unseen, tortured by currents
maliciously whimsical, encircled by tides that sweep up from the
Antarctic world with the devouring force of a monstrous serpent
projecting itself towards its prey. The captain of these tides, travelling
up through the Atlantic at a thousand miles an hour, enters the English
Channel, and drives on to the Thames. Presently retreating, it meets
another pursuing Antarctic wave, which, thus opposed in its
straightforward course, recoils into St. Michael's Bay, then plunges, as

it were, upon a terrible foe. They twine and strive in mystic conflict,
and, in rage of equal power, neither vanquished nor conquering, circle,
mad and desperate, round the Channel Isles. Impeded, impounded as
they riot through the flumes of sea, they turn furiously, and smite the
cliffs and rocks and walls of their prison-house. With the frenzied
winds helping them, the island coasts and Norman shores are battered
by their hopeless onset: and in that channel between Alderney and Cap
de la Hague man or ship must well beware, for the Race of Alderney is
one of the death-shoots of the tides. Before they find their way to the
main again, these harridans of nature bring forth a brood of currents
which ceaselessly fret the boundaries of the isles.
Always, always the white foam beats the rocks, and always must man
go warily along these coasts. The swimmer plunges into a quiet pool,
the snowy froth that masks the reefs seeming only the pretty fringe of
sentient life to a sleeping sea; but presently an invisible hand reaches
up and grasps him, an unseen power drags him exultingly out to the
main-- and he returns no more. Many a Jersey boatman, many a
fisherman who has lived his whole life in sight of the Paternosters on
the north, the Ecrehos on the east, the Dog's Nest on the south, or the
Corbiere on the west, has in some helpless moment been caught by the
unsleeping currents which harry his peaceful borders, or the rocks that
have eluded the hunters of the sea, and has yielded up his life within
sight of his own doorway, an involuntary sacrifice to the navigator's
knowledge
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code

 / 161
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.