The Child from the Sea by Elizabeth Goudge

Author:Elizabeth Goudge [Goudge, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: classic literature, Historical fiction, best historical fiction, Elizabeth Goudge books, christian Fiction
Publisher: Hendrickson Pub
Published: 2015-12-30T23:00:00+00:00

4

The next day was walled about with rain and Charles and Lucy felt as protected by it as by the spears of a friendly army. After a morning visit from Justus no human being came near them, but Justus had been welcome in that he brought food and wine, and cloaks to protect them from the weather; for well he knew that Lucy would not stay indoors in a storm. He also brought the unwelcome news that William was making arrangements for his son-in-law to start his journey back to England on the day after tomorrow, and that was not so good. Yet when Justus disappeared again into the rain he seemed to take the unwelcome tidings with him, while the food and wine remained.

Until now Charles had looked upon bad weather as something to be endured until the sun shone again but today Lucy taught him to glory in it. The boom of the wind thrilled and awed her, as though some great master were playing the organ, and the elemental power of water, so dreadful when it was unleashed, was yet glorious to her because it was as much the source of life as the sun itself. “It is as though the sea were pouring in,” she whispered happily to Charles, as they stood at the top of the kitchen steps and watched the rain drench into the roofless hall. It cascaded down the wide steps to the garden but not so much down the kitchen steps where the entry was narrow. “Our home is down at the bottom of the sea,” she said contentedly. “It is Cantre’r Gwaelod. We live in Cantre’r Gwaelod.”

“Explain to me,” said Charles.

They went back to the kitchen again and sitting in front of the fire she told him about the town under the sea. “When I was a little girl I used to think I had come from there. When I was small I did not think I was really the child of my parents. I thought I had run away from one of the houses in Cantre’r Gwaelod, where people still lived, and that the sea had washed me up in castle bay, and I used to picture myself crawling up the sand on all fours like a crab because I was too small to walk, and that my father had found me there and carried me home in his arms. I thought that is why I love the sea so much and why I always have a feeling that I must return to the sea. Do you think that souls come back to this world again? Do you think I was once a little girl living in Cantre’r Gwaelod before the sea swallowed it?”

“I could believe any such tale about you,” said Charles. “For you are an enchantress. And I like those old tales of earth men who fall in love with water maidens. Water is mysterious, and first love is so mysterious it is like rainbows in waterfalls, and

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