TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

on a bare rock. It satisfied him. It confirmed
some obscure feeling of his about his own char-
acter. The old ladies, he thought, thinking of the
garden at home, went dragging their chairs about
on the lawn. Old Mrs. Beckwith, for example,
was always saying how nice it was and how sweet
it was and how they ought to be so proud and
they ought to be so happy, but as a matter of fact
James thought, looking at the Lighthouse stood
there on its rock, it's like that. He looked at his
father reading fiercely with his legs curled tight.
They shared that knowledge. " We are driving
before a gale—we must sink/' he began saying to
himself, half aloud exactly as his father said it.

Nobody seemed to have spoken for an age.
Cam was tired of looking at the sea. Little bits
of black cork had floated past; the fish were dead
in the bottom of the boat. Still her father read,
and James looked at him and she looked at him,
and they vowed that they would fight tyranny to
the death, and he went on reading quite un-
conscious of what they thought. It was thus that
he escaped, she thought. Yes, with his great
forehead and his great nose, holding his little
mottled book firmly in front of him, he escaped.
You might try to lay hands on him, but then like
a bird, he spread his wings, he floated off to settle
out of your reach somewhere far away on some
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