Judith of the Isles

by Morley Roberts

 

Judith of the Isles

 

By Morley Roberts

 

FROM the windows of her room in her father’s house upon 7 St. Martin’s, Judith Trenear could see most of the lighthouses that are visible from the Scillies. These lights had always been much to her, but now they meant more than ever, for such as they meant safety to her lover, and for him they beaconed her home. This night in May, a warm, pellucid night almost like those of the tropics, she looked out upon them almost in despair. She had expected word of him before this, but his ship was overdue. He had promised faithfully to return before the end of May, if indeed he were living; and much depended on his return. None in the house knew how much hung upon it, save only old Deborah Trevellick, her father’s ancient cousin but her own friend.

Late that night the old woman tapped upon her door and came in.

“Are you not in bed, Judith?” she asked.

But Judith sat by the window with an old dressing-gown thrown about her shoulders. “You see I am not, Deborah,” she answered sullenly. “I sit here watching and waiting, and still he does not come.”

“And the time goes on,” said Deborah. “Oh, my maid, the time goes on, and Simon Pender is eager for his wife.”

“I’ll never be that,” said Judith fiercely.

“He’s a strong man,” said Deborah. “And he has your father in the clinch, my maid, what with money, and those fields John wants of him.”

But Judith shook her head. “He has me in no clinch, Deborah, not since my Tom came ashore when his ship was wrecked over at the Point.”

“Aye, that was a dreadful night,” said Deborah, “a very terrible night, when you and your father found Captain Drury on the beach half dead, with seven dead men by him. It was an awful thing to see those seven fine young men dead, Judith. I have seen them since, many times, so I have fancied. Now go to bed, and try to sleep.” And Deborah sighed and kissed her and went back to her own room.

But still Judith sat and watched the lights that guard the entrance to the two Channels, and her spirit cried out to her lover. At last she said to herself, “Father is late. He’s with Simon Pender, drinking, it may be, for that’s Simon’s way. I’m to be his wife, am I? Oh, I'll never be his wife!”

And then she heard her father’s footsteps coming up the road. He came into the house and locked the door behind him. The Islands are no great place for locking doors, and it was not his habit to do it; and Judith started when she heard the rusty grind of the old lock.

“He’d lock me in, maybe,” said Judith.

At that the very notion of sleep deserted her. Her spirit flamed “He'd lock me in! We'll see. ’Tis a fine night, and warm. The lights seem near, and the stars are bright.”

She dressed herself again, and, going to a chest—the sea-chest of some Greek sailor which had been washed ashore some fifty years before, and was painted oddly in a banded pattern of blue and red and yellow—she took out an old sheet. In one corner of it she put a knot, then she lashed the knot to the head-rail of her bed which stood against her window, tying it fast with a strong piece of cord. She got out on the window-sill and slid down, and dropped a little way upon the earth beneath. She left the sheet hanging, and went lightly to the beach, and finding her father’s boat, took it and thrust it into the water, and got in and rowed towards Tean Island, seeing the red flash of Round Island light as she rowed.

She landed at last on the island in a little cove that was well sheltered, a place of sand and silence and twilight. By now it was very late, and a half-moon rose on the eastern horizon far beyond the Lizard lighthouse, which glowed at times upon the sky. She felt free and uplifted. And suddenly the notion came to her of greater freedom, and she threw off her things and waded into the water and swam, finding the tide warm and buoyant and very sweet. She swam half-way to the opening between the western point of Tean and the northern part of the little Old Man, and then landed and ran back, white and naked, along the shore, and dried herself and clad herself again. Then she took to her boat, and, waiting for the young flood, went back to the beach of St. Martin’s whence she came.

The next morning she began making her preparations in case Tom Drury did not come when he had promised through some accident of the sea. And that day Simon came to St. Martin’s. When he reached the house, he saw her at the window, and called up, “Come down, Judith.”

“I’ll not come down,” she said.

“My beautiful Judith,” said Simon, “what about this other who'll never get you?”

“Don’t speak of him,” said Judith, and she looked as black as night.

“Our wedding day comes on,” said Simon. “Are you ready, Judith?”

“Aye, I’m ready,” said Judith, and she laughed.

“There’s a tale over in Penzance,” said Simon, “that Captain Drury is but a shipless man.”

“Such tales you've brought me before,” said Judith.

“A skipper without a ship is a broken man nowadays,” said Simon, exulting.

“What do I care if he’s broken?” asked Judith. “Does a woman care if she loves a man?”

“Gently, my maid,” said Simon, “that’s evil joking. You've loved me these long years deep in your heart. Aye, and this week, my maid, you'll be a wife.”

“Let it be so,” said Judith. “We shall see. You’re a strong man, but there are stronger; and still a young man, but there are younger.”

And Simon laughed uneasily, and went away. But thus he had courted her, even before she had known the man she loved.

Nevertheless, that she did not hear from Tom Drury troubled her greatly, and when Deborah went over to St. Mary’s that morning, she bade her ask about him and find out whether there was any truth in what Simon said. That night, when Deborah came back, she brought the tale. Drury had been in collision with a Spanish boat; one, it seemed, that knew not port from starboard, or so some sailorman reported. Drury’s boat, though in the right, had the worst of the sea argument, and had been cut down to the water’s edge, and was now patched up and limping somewhere in the chops of the Channel, making slowly for Mount’s Bay, it might be, or Falmouth Harbour.

At midnight, when the half-moon gleamed again, and there was still a calm, though there were strange signs in the air and sea, she left the house again with a great bundle of her chosen gear. Again she rowed over to Tean, and put it in a secret place. And with it she put food, for there was water on the island. In her secret place she made a bed, and covered it, making all things secret. The tide was strong against her as she rowed home, but it seemed a sign to her that she was strong and overcame it.

She said when she came back, “Now it is done, whether Tom comes now or later. I’ll never be home again after to-morrow till I have my own home; and if old Simon comes in the morning, I’ll be sweet to him.”

In the morning she was very cheerful. She sang, and her father wondered. She was very sweet to him, and he wondered the more. He looked at her strangely, and presently spoke: “What’s in your mind, Judith?”

“There’s much in my mind, father, said Judith. “Should there not be at such a time?”

“You change greatly,” he said suspiciously.

“I have heard it is our nature,” said his daughter.

“But a woman’s nature should be to be steadfast,” said John Trenear—“steadfast as your mother was. She was a good woman, and a good mother.”

“I could be all that,” said Judith.

That afternoon Simon came across from St. Mary’s in another man’s boat, purposing to return in the late evening. He came up to Trenear’s farm and spoke to him. “How’s the maid, John?” he asked.

“As they all are,” said her father, “a bit wild and strange. A man must take the women so, Simon. Some are hard to win, and the hardest to win often make the best wives.”

“Has she spoken to you again of this Drury?” asked Simon.

“Lately, not a word,” said her father.

“Let him not come here. If I’d known, I’d not have helped you and the others to save him. There’s an old saying, as you know well, that those you save from the sea will do you a hurt. Had I thought she would have cared for him, I’d have brained him where he lay.”

With that word he went up to the little town, and stayed there doing business, and then returned and hung about Trenear’s place and presently saw Judith. He smiled upon her, and to his surprise she was almost kind to him, saying, “Good morning, Simon,” as if he were a friend; and he was fooled by her.

“Oh, my maid,” said Simon, “’tis a sweet thing to hear you, and to see you smile! I would to-morrow were here.”

“Aye,” said Judith, “to-morrow.”

“May I have a kiss, Judith, this morning?”

But Judith denied him, and laughed. “Wait till to-morrow,” she said.

And he said, “Aye, to-morrow you’ll be mine, Judith. I’ve seen you grow these ten years, and had you in my heart the whole while. You were a little maid, and I saw strange beauty in you when others saw none. And you grew upon me, till I that was like a barren rock became sweeter to myself and like a pasture.”

But she spoke to Simon ambiguously, though deeply, and said, “Ten years is a very little time.”

“It is a very long time, Judith,” he answered, surprised.

“No, it is a very little time,” said Judith. “I’d have had you love me from eternity.”

And he did not understand. Yet he thought she meant that she loved him, in spite of the struggle she had made against his passion. Nevertheless, as soon as she was away from him, his fears returned. “If Drury comes,” said Simon, “I’ll kill him.”

As the day drew to its close he still walked the beach in sight of the farm, and Judith saw him, sometimes with pity and sometimes with anger; for he did not trust her, and she knew it. When the time came for him to go back to St. Mary’s he did not return, but sent away the man who had brought him. And he took his gun out of the boat and put it in John Trenear’s boat, which lay handy.

And still he walked the beach, and was walking there when the night fell. Judith knew it, and so did old Deborah, and they spoke together about it; and Deborah told John Trenear, so that he went down to him and spoke.

“Your mind is still harping on Captain Drury,” said John Trenear.

“And will be on him, and on Judith Trenear till she’s Judith Pender,” said Simon. “And now I’m best alone, John; so let me be. Go back, and don’t tell Judith I’m here. Tell her I’ve gone—I want you to tell her I’ve gone. It’s growing dark now; she’ll not see me here.”

“I’ll tell her,” said Judith’s father, and he went away to his house.

He met Deborah outside, and she asked, “John, is Simon gone?”

“Aye, he’s gone at last,” said John, mindful of his word. “Where’s Judith?”

“In her room,” said Deborah. “Where should she be?”

“Aye, where?” said John Trenear.

When Deborah too was gone to bed, and it was full dark by a long hour, John Trenear took off his shoes, and with a piece of rope in his hand went softly upstairs—but not so softly but that Judith heard his steps. He took the rope and made a clove hitch of it at one end, put the clove hitch over the handle of her door, which had no lock, and: drew it tight, and made the end of the rope fast to a big spike in the near wall so that the door could not be opened.

But Judith heard the faint rattling of the handle, and sat up in bed and wondered. And she understood. “Days ago he began locking the door down-stairs,’ said Judith, “and now he’s shut me in my room. Oh, these wise old men!’” And she laughed to herself.

It was midnight when she rose quietly. By this time her father was asleep, for in the next room she heard him breathing heavily. As she stood by the open window, which faced southward, she listened to the sounding song of the sea upon the cliffs and rocks of her islands. There was a threat of heavy weather in the sound, though it might be days yet till the storm burst; and the sky was obscured, oppressive, summerlike.

She knew that Tom Drury could not be far off, for as soon as he came into Mount’s Bay or Falmouth Harbour he would leave his ship at any risk and come to her; that she knew, and rejoiced to know. Once more she took the sheet with its knot from the old chest, lashed it about the bed-post and lowered it from the window, and again she slid down it.

She went quietly out of the garden and down the path to the sea, and came to where her father’s boat lay. She even then went lightly, and presently was glad that she had done so, for when she looked into the boat there was a man there fast asleep, and she saw the face of the sleeping man. It was Simon Pender, and by his side he had his gun. At that moment the moon showed through the drifting clouds and she saw him plainly, and stood silent, wrathful and wondering.

Nevertheless, she feared him who slept there hugging death in his arms, dreaming, it might be, of her. The thought of that was an outrage, and she grew strangely angry. She desired to take away his weapon; but he held it close, and she dared not wake him. There was no other boat near at hand. All the other boats lay far up the beach, for now the tide had run out and the flats were visible and shining. She stood thinking for a while, and turned her back upon the boat and went again by her own house, and came at last to the shore at Tinkler’s Point. She picked up a chip and threw it far out into the water, and saw that the ebb was nearly done. Then she stripped herself, and, taking her clothes in her hand, entered the water and swam towards Tean.

She laughed as she swam. She seemed a free woman—free for ever, as she thought; but those who love are never free, and this she had to learn, and would learn it in humility, for she had a great heart. So presently she came to her island and walked among the rocks lightly, and taking her wet garments, wrung them out, and, going to where she had concealed her other things, she dressed herself anew. The gown that she clothed herself in was not that of a worker, but the garment of one who rejoiced, for it was scarlet. She sat down upon a rock and again bound up her abundant hair, some of which had been loosened and moistened by the sea. And she took her things and went to her little place of concealment, and slept soundly, lulled by the music of the sea.

Old John Trenear also slept well, and so did Simon Pender, for he was a tired man, and had gone through much these latter days; so that, though his bed was comfortless, he found sleep heavy upon him. And at last the dawn came up—a very high dawn, with a bank of heavy clouds upon the horizon; and the sun, shooting his fiery spokes over it into higher clouds that were solid and oily, with a horrible red colour and crude spaces and interspaces of green, green that was olive, and green that was emerald, made a sign and a portent. For all this was the sign of a gale, and there is no surer sign, not even the falling glass.

When Simon woke he ached in every limb, and swore as he rose. And he stamped upon the beach, for the chill of early dawn had got him, and he had been covered scantily with an old sail. He looked up towards Judith’s house, and walked to and fro upon the beach; and looked again as the light grew, and he saw a strange, white line down the front of the farmhouse, and wondered at it, for his eyes were not young, and he did not see clearly far off. He put the gun back in the boat and walked towards the house, and he saw the white line more plainly still, and knew that it came from Judith’s window. So then he battered at the door angrily and woke John Trenear and old Deborah, and John put his head out of the window and called to him: “What is it, Simon?—what is it?”

“The maid’s away,” cried Simon. “She’s away!”

“Who’s away?” asked John, still half asleep.

“Judith. She’s gone,” said Simon. “Look out of your window—see this sheet.” And he shook it as John leant out and saw it, and cursed aloud.

He ran to Judith’s room and tore away the lashing of her door, and found the bed empty. Old Deborah in the passage cried aloud with him, but in her heart she was glad.

John said to her, “Where’s Judith?

But she cried out, “How should I know where your maid’s gone? Let those who would marry her find her out.”

So John let Simon in, and he was as white as foam. “What’s the meaning of it?” he cried.

But John had no answer. “She’s away with that man Drury, it may be,” he said at last.

“’Tis impossible,” said Simon. “I’ve had those who would send me word if he were home. I’ve done all a man could, and now you've let her slip, and who knows what’s happened?”

But Deborah came to where they stood, and, wringing her hands, made out to burst into tears, and cried, “Oh, my little maid’s drowned! My little maid’s drowned!”

And John Trenear shook like a leaf, and Simon laid hold of her saying, “Why do you speak such things?”

And Deborah without looking at him answered, “Because she hated you and loved Captain Drury, and you'd force the little maid to marry you. Oh, ’tis a cruel thing—my little maid’s drowned! My little maid’s drowned!’” And she sat down and sobbed lamentably. But in her heart she laughed, for she knew the little maid was not drowned, because she understood her heart.

But the two men believed what she said, for neither of them knew Judith. Nevertheless, Simon cried out, “It cannot be! How could such a maid die?—or have the strength to die?” For he felt his own strength still in him, and life seemed very desirable—or had seemed so until now.

But again Deborah answered him bitterly, and, answering him, spoke as bitterly to John: “When an old man, or a man as old as you, Simon, is after a young maid, what should she do if she loves another man?—and he not here to strike you down, you murderer!”

“Peace, woman!” cried John Trenear. “Peace, I bid you!”

By now the wind came stronger out of the south-east, but there was southing in it, and it veered, growing still stronger, Even as John Trenear and Simon Pender stood by the house they saw a boat coming across the making tide south of Great Ganinick, and they wondered who it was that came, for it was yet early, and the Islanders are not early men. But the boat had a good wind astern of her, and they saw that he who steered came straight for the landing-place; and presently he ran his boat ashore alongside John Trenear’s boat where Simon had slept during the night. And still they did not recognise the man as he came ashore, and they wondered if he might be somebody who brought them news of Judith, for what she had done they knew not, nor, if she had drowned herself, in what place. Then they saw the stranger, for they knew now that he was a stranger, come up. the hill towards them. But at last he hastened, and sometimes ran, and Simon Pender, whose eyes were the younger, cried out, “Why, it’s Tom Drury!”

He was a big man and strong, with a great sea brownness and yet fair under it, and with blue eyes like no man belonging to the Islands or to Cornwall, but rather like one who comes from the north, perhaps of Scandinavian blood, the blood of the Vikings. And there was a smile upon his face, for he cared for neither of them, but came up strongly and spoke to them, saying, “I’ve come for Judith—I’ve come for my maid.” For he spoke the language that they did, and the word “maid” was beautiful in his mouth.

But they did not answer him, and looked very strangely, so that Drury asked, “Why do you look like that, John Trenear? Where is Judith?”

Then he stared up at the house, and saw her open window and the white sheet hanging from it. But he did not understand it, and he called out loud, “Judith!—Judith!” And Deborah heard him, and cried out in her heart joyfully.

“My little maid’s man!” said Deborah—“my little maid’s man!”

And again when Judith did not answer, Captain Drury spoke. “Where’s my maid?”

Then Trenear answered him very darkly, shaking as he spoke, “She’s no man’s maid, Captain Drury—she’s no man’s maid. She’s drowned.”

For a moment Drury was staggered, and his hands dropped by his sides. But again his true instincts spoke in him, for he knew how they spoke in Judith. “Why do you say that?” he asked. “I don’t believe you. You meant her to marry this man this day. I should have been here yesterday. Speak—did she not leave the house that way this last night?”

He pointed at the house, and both men nodded.

And Drury turned to John Trenear, and said, “I know, man; she’s taken your boat and sailed away, maybe to St. Ives, or to Mount’s Bay, to meet me. She’d have done it, I know.”

“She did not take my boat,” said John Trenear. “We thought that she might, and therefore Simon Pender slept in it.”

“Is there no other boat?” asked Drury.

“None that she could take—none here,” said Simon. And he cried out, “Oh, that I had not slept in the boat!”

Drury left them and walked to the house and stood under the window, and laid hold of the white sheet and stood thinking.

And even as he did so, Deborah opened the lower window and spoke to him. “Go to Tean Island—go to Tean,” she said, and she shut the window.

But Drury knew what she meant, and he laughed. “My brave little maid! She’d swim to me.”

And Trenear and Simon saw that Deborah had spoken to him, and as he came down again from the house, going towards his boat, John stood in his way.

“What did that woman say to you?” he asked.

And Drury answered nothing, but looked at him straight as he passed him by. There was that in his face which answered, for no man looks like Drury who believes in the death of her he has loved, nor does he go with so light a step to his boat upon the beach.

John called to Simon, who stood a little apart, and said, “Simon, ’tis not true—she’s not dead. That lying Deborah has spoken to Drury, and he’s gone away with a bright face. Look!—look!”

And as they looked, Drury thrust off, and hoisted the sail, and waved to them joyfully as he sent his boat out into the weather tide which came in powerfully through St. Helen’s Pool and set down to the south-east.

Then Simon took hold of John Trenear in white anger, and said, “I’ll speak to Deborah, man. Go down and get the boat ready while I see her.” So he went up to the house, and John Trenear went to the boat.

Simon found her in the kitchen, and when he entered she thought for a moment it was John, and prepared to face him. But when she saw it was Simon, she cried out, for he had that in his face which made her flinch.

He came up to her and caught hold of her, and said, “Speak the truth, woman! Where’s Judith?”

She answered him, “I don’t know,” but trembled in his hands.

“You liar!” said Simon. “You told Drury something. What did you tell him?’

And again she answered stubbornly, “I told him nothing.”

But Simon did not believe her, and took her by the shoulders and shook her till she screamed. And there was murder in his face as he said, “Speak! Tell me, or I’ll kill you.”

Then she cried out in great fear, “I’ll tell the truth, Simon. If she’s alive, she’s on Tean.”

And Simon believed her, but as he went he said, “If it is not true, look out for yourself. Oh, if it is not true!”

He ran down to the beach, and found John Trenear busy with the boat. And John would have come with him, but Simon would not have him, for now there was murder in his heart. So Simon entered the boat alone and hoisted the sail. With the wind now strong from the south, and breathing heavily and in threats, he stood out into the tideway. He had a faster boat than the one Drury sailed, which was but a little way ahead of him.

The wind even in those landlocked waters was now strong, for once or twice he and Drury had to luff up into it to save themselves from being capsized. They heard the roar of the outside sea upon the outer rocks and the triple rock of Menavawr, and the booming thunder of the breaking seas upon the Golden Ball. For the roar of the sea upon the Bar is like thunder, and it has its own voice as all those rocks have, so that one knows the sound of them, like the sound of harp-strings, each its own tone, and strange and wonderful.

Though Drury was ahead of Simon at the outset, still he did not know the tides as the other man did, and Trenear’s boat carried more sail, and was by her nature faster. So presently Simon drew up with him, and when the wind veered, his boat too was the more weatherly, so that presently he over-reached on Drury, passing him close, though the two men never spoke. Nevertheless, Drury now followed him nearly, so that Simon had only the advantage of the swiftness of his boat.

Presently he saw him lower his sail and drive the boat ashore in a little sandy cove on the south-west of Tean, and still Drury was minutes behind him. He saw him jump ashore, carrying his gun in his hand, and then he saw Judith rise from the grass of the little topmost hill in the island and run towards Simon with her hands outstretched, and he wondered. He saw her go up to the man almost as if she loved him, and take him by the arm as it were to plead with him; and Drury was much astonished.

But Judith was greatly afraid of Simon, not for herself, but for her lover who was coming. She cried out as she laid hold upon him, “’Tis all a mistake!—’tis all a mistake! Oh, take me home, Simon!—take me home!”

But the other man held off from her, and his face was terrible to see, for he looked old and wrinkled, and the signs of coming age were in him and passion accentuated them. “You lie to me, Judith!”

But she cried out again cunningly in her fear, “No, no, I do not lie. Take me home with you!—take me home!”

And he said to her, “Is this true that you would go back?”

“It is true,” she said.

“You are to be my wife,” cried Simon.

She looked at him with strange eyes, and cast them down even as she spoke, “Aye, if you will, it must be so. You’re not angry with me, Simon? I was frightened. Who is he that came with you?”

And she took him by the shoulders, for her eyes and her soft speech overcame him. And even as she did so she cried out, “Why, vtis Captain Drury! You’ll not kill him, Simon? Give me your gun.”

“I will not,” cried Simon. “Tell him not to come ashore if he values his life.”

“Why should you kill him if I love you?” said Judith.

“Kiss me, then, before him,” said Simon.

Then she put up her face like a child, and as Simon stooped she suddenly seized his gun and wrenched it from him. And at that very moment Drury beached his boat and left it wallowing with the sail aloft, and ran up the beach. Then she ran too, and Simon went after her furiously; but she turned upon him, and struck him with the barrel on the head, and as she struck him the charge exploded, and Simon fell, for he had had the gun at full cock. But Tom came up to her, and she stood with the smoking gun in her hand, trembling.

So she cried out, “Is he dead?—is he dead?” For she feared that she had shot him, he lay so still, and there was blood running down his forehead. She dropped the gun upon the grass, and fell on her knees beside him.

And Drury came to her, and before he looked at Simon he looked at her, and for a while there was jealousy in his heart. He said, “What did he say to you?—and what did you say to him?”

But she cried out, “I said what I had to say, for I was afraid for you. Is he dead?”

But even then she heard Simon groan, and he stirred a little and opened his eyes, and she saw his mouth move. And Tom turned from her to the man lying on the grass and knelt by him.

“’Tis but a cracked crown, after all,” he said. “Oh, you’re a brave lass, Judith!”

Her colour came back to her. And yet, being sorry, she said to her lover, “Take the gun, and leave us and go down to the boats, and in a very little while I will come to you.”

But Drury took up the gun and put it down again, and went to her, and taking her by both shoulders looked at her straight in the eyes. And he said, “Kiss me, Judith.”

And she kissed him. Then he took up the gun again and went to the beach, and stood there satisfied in his heart.

But Judith took her handkerchief and wiped away the blood from Simon’s face, and bound up his head. Presently he groaned and opened his eyes, and came back to himself, but felt weak and very strange. He asked what had happened.

“I—I struck you,” said Judith.

And for a little while he did not answer. Then he asked, “Where is the other man?”

“By the boat, waiting,” said Judith.

And Simon came to himself, and said, “Once you loved me.”

“I always feared you,” said Judith, “and just now there was death in your eyes, and I was afraid.”

Simon groaned. “I loved you truly these many years, ever since you were a little maid.”

“I am sorry,” said Judith.

“And that man out of the sea came and took you from me. “Go!” he said—go!”

And she had no more to say. Nor could he speak, and he turned away his face from her to the grass. She saw his shoulders shake, and it seemed to her that he was a poor old man weeping. So she too went down to the beach weeping, for her heart was moved; and for a little moment she hated her lover, and life, and the nature of life, since even love was so cruel a thing.

But she came to Drury at last, and her face was very wonderful, and quiet, though tears ran down her cheeks. She said to him, “Come, now let us go!” And in silence they got into the boat.

Then he said to her, “Where are we to go, Judith?”

“Wherever you will, Tom,” she answered.

And he smiled. “Wherever you will. Dare you sail with me outside the Islands? Your Islanders don’t love the outer seas.”

“I’ll go with you anywhere,” she said, and she smiled again, drying her tears.

“’Tis a good boat I’ve got,’ said Drury, “and a sound. I borrowed her from an old man of St. Ives, and sailed her here this last night. If you will come with me to St. Ives, we’ll sail her there now, my maid, though it blow a whole gale out of the south-west.”

She knew she would go to the world’s end with him. Yet she asked him, “Why did you not come before?”

“I could not,” said Drury. But that she knew.

And though the wind was now big, and roared triumphantly among: the rocks of the Scillies, there was the great sea of life before them. She looked round her sorrowfully. “It may be I shall never see my Islands again,” said Judith.

“There’s a big world before us,” said her lover. “I’ll show you the world, Judith, and the great seas, and the bright lands of the south.”

They heard the sound of the gale and the roar of the sea, and rejoiced in it, for both their hearts were strong. They kissed each other, and were glad. And presently far across the open Channel and the roaring flood they saw the dim coast towards which they leapt. The freed heart of Judith chanted a great song, for she was a creature of the sea and yet loved the earth and her lover.

Morley Roberts.