“Oh, yes, certainly, sir, it’s got a name.”
“Well, what is the name? I don’t know where I am.”
“Where have you come from, sir? from the Wight?”
And after these Scottish answers to the questions of a Scotsman, at last I found my way into Littlehampton; and if ever you go to the Beach Hotel in want of a soft bed, after sleeping out of a bed for nearly a month, you will find it there.
This little place, between Bognor and Brighton, is a quiet bathing town just in the delicate stage of existence, when it has been found out and admired, but not yet spoilt. One row of houses fronts the sea with a fine grassy plain between, and a clean white strand.
The Inn was of olden times, and apart near the water, with a landlady of the good old English type; and her son, the waiter, rampant about canoes, kept an aviary under the porch and a capital swimming dog in the stable.
Lie on a sofa in the coffee-room detached, and read the ‘Times,’—go into the drawing-room and play the piano, or sit under the garden trees and gaze on the fair blue sea, and hope fervently that, with a strong Tory government to protect our institutions, this hotel may be long kept hid from that merciless monster the “Company (Limited).” But already a railway runs here, and threatens its quiet. Even a steamer now and then from France screws its way into the very narrow channel, where the river Arun has wound down thus far from Arundel. [188]
CHAPTER XIV.
Heavy sea—Isle of Wight—The Commodore—A glance at gear—Bow—Running rigging—Sisterhooks—Horse—Tiller.
The boy and his dog formed a small crowd on the little pier to see the Rob Roy start again with a fine breeze off shore, but freshening every minute until near Selsea Bill it blew half a gale. The navigation round this point is difficult at low water, as may be seen from the markings in the chart copied at page 245, merely as a specimen of what a chart is for the sailor’s eye.