And Cicely melted like wax against glowing iron. But only for a moment, and then said: “Well, if it must be, it must.”
Fifty years have passed since that day.
There is now an old seaman sits smoking his pipe on the bench, looking seaward, and he yarns with his mates, and is looked up to and listened to by the younger men. He has got strapping sons of his own. They are seamen as was their father. He has a daughter married, and the old chap is fond of taking one of his grandchildren out with him, to walk on the quay and sit on the old bench beside him or else on his knee.
That old man is Will Swan.
The Crowe, by holy matrimony, had become a Swan.
The pretty Cicely I remembered so long ago was now dead; and old Bill wore a black band round his blue jersey arm.
A day or two ago I was sitting by him on the bench.
He was silent for a long time, smoking and blowing clouds.
Presently he turned his face to me. I saw there was trouble in it.