The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unknown Sea, by Clemence Housman

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Title: The Unknown Sea

Author: Clemence Housman

Release Date: October 5, 2010 [EBook #33945]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE UNKNOWN SEA

BY

CLEMENCE HOUSMAN

[Decoration]

LONDON _DUCKWORTH and CO._ 3 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 1898

_All rights reserved_

Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty

THE UNKNOWN SEA

CHAPTER I

A solitary fisher ploughed the lively blue of a southern sea. Strength of
limb, fair hair, and clear grey eyes told of a northern race, though his
skin had been tanned to a red-brown, dark as the tint of the slender,
dark-eyed, olive-skinned fishers born under these warm skies. In stature
and might a man, he was scarcely more than a boy in years; beardless yet,
and of an open, boyish countenance. As his boat raced eagerly forward he
laughed for pride of heart, and praised her aloud after a fashion native
to the south: she was his beloved, his bird, his blossom, his queen; and
for his warrant well built she was, promising strength and speed in due
degrees, and beautiful obedience to him. Her paint was bright, her ruddy
canvas unstained, in contrast to a pile of tackle, black from age and
use: the nets and the weighted cross-beams of coral fishing.

White wings against the sky, and white crests upon the sea, broke the
entire blue. Far away to eastward, faint and hazy, suave lines extended;
but a coast that the boy neared lifted gaunt and desolate cliffs,
overlooking a waste of roaring breakers. Midmost of these, sheer and
black as the crags beyond, a dark mass rose dominant, like a sullen
outcast from the land holding rule, whose mere aspect fitted well the
name, Isle Sinister, without an evil implication that went therewith. The
young fisher's memory was stored with dark tales, born long ago to night
and fear, cheri