Characters

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 11, 8 October 1936, Page 6

Characters

| The steamer express wharf was | | crowded and noisy with the ex- j ] cited voices of the people who sail I g and the people who see them off. | g In the broken shadows .were said I | the last farewells, casual or sad. i g Up went the gangway and the i | ship slipped across the water, | | leaving behind it the hills and the I g windy city, the waving hands of | | friends. i g The crowd at the end of the I g wharf was suddenly quiet, filled I | with the curious sense of flat i | fatality that haunts all partings. I | Homeward footsteps echoed hoi- I | lowly, and the water lapped i | against the piles. i | Only one man remained, staring 1 | at the little bright village moving ] § out bravely to the harbour heads. j | He was young, stockily built, with : | a face of no particular distinc- j | tion. Before the ship left he i | had stood a little apart, talking to | |no one, seeking no one. A porter, | | glancing at him, shrugged burly | | shoulders. “He often comes,” he | | said. “Not regularly, you know, , 1 but now and then. He never has 1 | anyone with him.” B The face of the watcher on the i J wharf betrayed no feeling, not i | even the melancholy that comes : | with the realisation of beauty. I | j ventured a remark. “Romantic, j | aren’t they? Ships at night!” | He nodded witrout agreement. 1 | “Air’s cold,” he added, prosaically. j | I asked if he walked on the water- | I front for his health’s sake, but he i | told me very politely that he was i very fit indeed, thank you. | “Your home in the south?” | "No!” i g “Ever wanted to go to sea for a 1 | living? Ever thought of sailing | 1 to the Antarctic with the whal- i | ers?” He grunted denials. | I hedged the question no longer, • gat risk of prying. After all, as 1 J well be snubbed for impertinence | | as inquisitiveness. “Do you like 1 f crowds? Or ships? Or dark- I jg ness? Why do you come here?” | S The lonely watcher looked at | | me in unguarded surprise. “I = | like them all well enough,” he ] | answered. i | But he did not tell me why he I | came. I think he had never [ g wondered. i i — O.M.A. I