TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

by their compact to fight tyranny to the death)/
At last they had shoved her off, they had launched
the lifeboat, and they had got her out past the
point—Macalister told the story; and though
they only caught a word here and there, they were
conscious all the time of their father—how he
leant forward, how he brought his voice into tune
with Macalister's voice; how, puffing at his pipe,
and looking there and there where Macalister
pointed, he relished the thought of the storm and
the dark night and the fishermen striving there,
He liked that men should labour and sweat
on the windy beach at night, pitting muscle
and brain against the waves and the wind; he
liked men to work like that, and women to keep
house, and sit beside sleeping children indoors,
while men were drowned, out there in a storm.
So James could tell, so Cam could tell (they looked
at him, they looked at each other), from his toss
and his vigilance and the ring in his voice, and the
little tinge of Scottish accent which came into his
voice, making him seem like a peasant himself, as
he questioned Macalister about the eleven ships
that had been driven into the bay in a storm.
Three had sunk.

He looked proudly where Macalister pointed;
and Cam thought, feeling proud of him without
knowing quite why, had he been there he would
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