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THE WHITE SHIP

BY CHARLES DICKENS

This is a story of the days when strong arms and graceful sails drove ships across the sea. It is only one of many tragedies in which Old Ocean has figured so heavily; but it is one of the best known, because of the manner in which Dickens has told it in his A Child's History of England; a book which you will enjoy reading from cover This extract is from the chapter on Henry I.

to cover.

THE

HE king went to Normandy with his son Prince a William and a great retinue, to have the prince acknowledged as his successor by the Norman nobles and to contract the promised marriage between him sand the daughter of the Count of Anjou. Both these things were triumphantly done with great show and rejoicing; and on the 25th of November in the year 1120, the whole retinue prepared to embark at the port of Barfleur for the voyage home.

On that day and at that place there came to the king, Fitz-Stephen, a sea captain, and said:

"My liege, my father served your father all his life, upon the sea. He steered the ship with the golden boy upon the prow in which your father sailed Is to conquer England. I beseech you to grant me the same office. I have a fair vessel in the harbor here, called The White Ship, manned by fifty sailors of renown. I pray you, sire, to let your servant have the honor of steering you in The White Ship to Eng20 land!"

"I am sorry, friend," replied the king, "that my vessel is already chosen and that I cannot sail with the son of the man who served my father. But the prince and all his company shall go along with you in the fair White Ship, manned by the fifty sailors of s renown."

An hour or two afterwards the king set sail in the vessel he had chosen, accompanied by other vessels, and sailing all night with a fair and gentle wind arrived upon the coast of England in the morning. 10 While it was yet night the people in some of those ships heard a faint, wild cry come over the sea and wondered what it was.

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Now the prince was a dissolute, debauched young man of eighteen who bore no love to the English and had declared that when he came to the throne he would yoke them to the plow like oxen. He went aboard The White Ship with one hundred and forty youthful nobles like himself, among whom were eighteen noble ladies of the highest rank. All this gay 20 company with their servants and the fifty sailors made three hundred souls aboard the stately vessel, The White Ship.

"Give three casks of wine, Fitz-Stephen," said the prince, "to the fifty sailors of renown. My father, 25 the king, has sailed out of the harbor. What time is there to make merry here, and yet reach England with the rest?"

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"Prince," said Fitz-Stephen, "before morning my fifty and The White Ship shall overtake the swiftest vessel in attendance on your father, the king, if we sail at midnight!"

Then the prince commanded to make merry; and the sailors drank out the three casks of wine, and the prince and all the noble company danced in the moonlight on the deck of The White Ship.

When at last she shot out of the harbor of Barfleur

But the sails

To there was not a sober seaman on board. were all set and the oars all going merrily. FitzStephen had the helm. The gay young nobles and the beautiful ladies, wrapped in mantles of various bright colors to protect them from the cold, talked, 15 laughed, and sang. The prince encouraged the fifty sailors to row harder yet, for the honor of The White Ship.

Crash! A terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts. It was the cry the people in the distant 20 vessels of the king heard faintly on the water. The White Ship had struck upon a rock — was filling — going down!

Fitz-Stephen hurried the prince into a boat, with some few nobles. "Push off," he whispered, "and

2 row to the land. It is not so far and the sea is smooth. The rest of us must die."

But as they rowed away fast from the sinking ship, the prince heard the voice of his sister Marie, calling