As though they were suspended in space we saw a tug,
having a barque in tow, far but distinct, in the light of the bay, tiny
models of ebony set in a vast brightness. They were poised in the
illumination, and seemed to be motionless, but we knew they were moving
down on us. "Here she comes," said the seaman, "and a fine evening it
is for the end of her last voyage." Shipbreakers had bought that
barque. She was coming in to be destroyed.

The stillness of the world, and its lustre in which that fine black
shape was centred and was moving to her end, made me feel that
headlands, sea, and sky knew what was known to the two watchers on the
hill. She was condemned. The ship was central, and the regarding world
stood about her in silence. Sombre and stately she came, in the manner
of the tragic proud, superior to the compelling fussiness of little
men, making no resistance. The spring tide was near full. It had
flooded the marsh lands below us, but not with water, for those
irregular pools resplendent as mirrors were deeps of light. The
hedgerows were strips of the earth's rind remaining above a profound.
The light below the lines of black hedges was antipodean. The barque
moved in slowly. She did not go past the lighthouse, and past our hill,
into the harbour beyond, like a ship about the business of her life.
She turned into the shallows below us, and stood towards the foot of
the hill.

"She's altered a little," meditated Galsworthy. "They've shortened her
sticks, those Norwegians, and painted her their beastly mustard colour
and white. She's hogbacked, too. Well, she's old." The old man
continued his quiet meditation. He was really talking to himself, I
think, and I was listening to his thoughts.

"Look!" cried Galsworthy, suddenly rising, his hand gripping my
shoulder. The tug had cast off and was going about. The ship came right
on. There was an interval of time between her and the shore which was
breathless and prolonged.

"She's aground!" exclaimed the old man to himself, and the hand on my
shoulder gripped harder. He stood regarding her for some time. "She's
done," he said, and presently released me, sitting down beside me
again, still looking at her moodily, smoking his pipe. He was silent
for a time. Perhaps he had in his mind that he too had taken the
ground. It was sunset, and there she was, and there was he, and no more
sparkling morning tides out of port for them any more.

Presently he turned to me. "The