Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/37



, whose nature was passionate and philosophy audacious, told himself, not without reason, that through his affinities, he would feel himself at home amid these beautifully barbarous surroundings, where natural instincts reigned.

He even inaugurated his accession as "Dykgrave," with an innovation, against which the minister Balthus Bomberg was infallibly bound to fulminate from the full height of his pastoral desk. To flatter the native sentiment, Henry had invited to his table not only a few squires and landed proprietors, and a few artists from among his town friends, but he had also summoned around him a crowd of simple farmers, small ship-owners, masters of sailing-vessels and barges of the lowest class, the lighthouse-keeper, the lock-keeper, the heads of the dikemen's gang, and even simple labourers. These natives he had further invited to