HAIL AND FAREWELL!
On the marsh there was the breath of mown hay that comes when the grass
is ready, before ever the scythe is swung or the cutter yoked. On the
eve of his wedding, Lancaster walked the ribbon of road alone.
To-morrow Helwise would be gone, joyfully transplanted to Watters for
life, and in her place his dear love, with all his joy in her hands. He
closed a reverent palm on the leaping thought, and turned to send his
tribute out across the sea.
The Let had come through the winter months unharmed, but the
unbuttressed Lugg looked pitifully rent, with its six doors set open
for any flood to charge unchallenged. Year after year it would shrink
and crumble, beaten and torn, until the memory of its fame would be but
a tale mumbled in old men’s mouths. And not a hand had been laid on
the Pride since the Whinnerahs had gone out with the dawn. Tide after
tide swam cold into its wrecked rooms, and took its flotsam of broken
sticks. In the little fire-lit home the waves swallowed the empty
hearth and fretted the mouldering walls. Where the kettle had sung and
the tired dogs breathed in a happy sleep, the bitter water plashed and
moaned.
Yet the sea had not won. Wolf was its victor, though it had dragged him
down and strangled him out of life. For many waters cannot quench love,
neither can the floods drown it.
On this the eve of blessed beginnings, Lancaster gave himself wholly to
his faithful dead.
“_Who hath remembered me? who hath forgotten?_
Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,
But the world shall end when I forget!”
_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay._
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
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Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.