Crying for the Light, Volume 1

In one of the hottest days of the summer of 184-, a young man of lofty bearing and aristocratic descent was riding on horseback carelessly along the highroad that leads from Great Yarmouth to Ipswich, and not many miles from the rising town of Lowestoft. He had a companion with him not very much older than himself, but with a face bronzed with foreign travel.

‘How hot it is! ' said the younger of the two, as he reined up his steed on the brow of a small hill, at the foot of which was a stretch of marshland draining slowly into the sea a mile off on his left, while on the other side of the marsh, given up to cattle and horses and sheep, the road led to a rising tableland, dotted with old red-brick farmhouses and stately oaks and dark firs. A painter such as Constable or Gainsborough would have soon transferred something of the peaceful rustic beauty all round to his canvas. Far off was the calm blue sea, dark with slow-sailing colliers on their way to or from the distant port of London; nearer the shore were the brown sails of the fishing boats; while among them were a few pleasure yachts, the proprietors of which were endeavouring to earn an honest penny by carrying holiday makers to the sands which mark the commencement of the Yarmouth Roads. Nowhere was the dark line of smoke which marks the modern steamer visible. England then trusted in her wooden walls and her sailors with their hearts of oak, and dreamt not of the time when all that craft should be replaced by big iron or steel built steamers, ready to sink to the bottom, with all their crew and cargo or passengers, in case of a collision, in the twinkling of an eye.