26o ALONGSHORE rv 



cottage from the inrush of the tides, and around 

 it the waves beat so that their spray was blown 

 into the combe of the Black Abbey and upon the 

 faces of the dark cliffs on either side. In the 

 evening when the sun was sinking behind the 

 farthest wave in the west, the Black Abbey cast 

 a long shadow over the cottage, until its grey stone 

 walls and the green-grey lichens upon them were 

 black like the Black Abbey and the rocks round- 

 about. During many ages continually, the cry of 

 the sea had filled the combe. And the gulls 

 wheeled round and mewed to the sea for food. 



The m.an loved the body of his wife, who was 

 beautiful, as a lily is beautiful on an altar in a 

 dim church. Yet he hated her too, for her soul 

 was vast and empty, so that the four winds of 

 heaven could not have filled it, and in her eyes 

 was nothing. She feared the sea that he loved, 

 and that was more beautiful than she was. She 

 stayed always in the grey cottage, or wandered, 

 and was like light, in the day-long dusk under 

 the pine-trees which were as thick as giant moss 

 upon the slopes of the combe. When he hated 

 her he was sorry, and when he loved her, sorrow 

 was the end of it. Two sorrows he took to the 

 sea. 



