could scarcely imagine himself clinging. But his father rode ahead,
carelessly erect on his blood-horse--horse and rider seen in a blur
through the salt-encrusted glass. Therefore Master Dicky held on as
best he might to the arm-strap.

By degrees his terror drained away, though its ebb left him shivering.
Child though he was, he could not remember when he had not been curious
about the sea. In a dazed fashion he stared out upon the breakers.
The wind had died down after the tempest, but the Atlantic kept its
agitation. Meeting the shore (which hereabouts ran shallow for five or
six hundred yards) it reared itself in ten-foot combers, rank stampeding
on rank, until the sixth or seventh hurled itself far up the beach,
spent itself in a long receding curve, and drained back to the foaming
forces behind. Their untiring onset fascinated Dicky; and now and
again he tasted renewal of his terror, as a wave, taller than the rest
or better timed, would come sweeping up to the coach itself, spreading
and rippling about the wheels and the horses' fetlocks. "Surely this
one would engulf them," thought the child, recalling Pharaoh and his
chariots; but always the furious charge spent itself in an edge of white
froth that faded to delicate salt filigree and so vanished. When this
had happened a dozen times or more, and still without disaster, he took
heart and began to turn it all into a game, choosing this or that
breaker and making imaginary wagers upon it; but yet the spectacle
fascinated him, and still at the back of his small brain lay wonder that
all this terrifying fury and uproar should always be coming to nothing.
God must be out yonder (he thought) and engaged in some mysterious form
of play. He had heard a good deal about God from Miss Quiney, his
governess; but this playfulness, as an attribute of the Almighty, was
new to him and hitherto unsuspected.