Read The Nymph and the Lamp for Free Online

after that—phew! Do you know what sailors used to call it—what the newspapers still call it? The graveyard of the Atlantic!”
    Carney could not remember when he had talked so much to a woman. It was a relief to talk to anyone after all that mute wandering in strange towns and cities, caught like a chip in a flood of indifferent and even hostile faces. And it was easy to run on about the one thing he knew well, especially to someone who at least knew what he was talking about. He offered her a glance of apology and found her looking at him curiously, as if she had taken him too carelessly at first and now found him of interest.
    â€œGo on,” she said.
    â€œThe only people there are on the government establishment lightkeepers, the lifesaving crew, the wireless operators, and a number of wives and children. About forty or fifty in all. We’re all there to beat the Devil, so to speak. Everybody has a job to do or a watch to keep, so we don’t see much of each other except when the steamer comes and we all get together at the west end of the island to pick up our stores and mail. That’s three or four times a year. There’s a telephone line, of course. The stations are scattered along the whole length of the island and there’s a lighthouse at each end.”
    â€œHow do you get back and forth?”
    â€œRide, mostly. The lifesavers catch a few wild ponies and break ’em in for riding, hauling the supply wagons, the lifeboat carriage and so on. Everybody rides on Marina. The kids can stick on a pony’s back almost before they can walk.”
    The waiter brought his order, a platter of fried potatoes and codfish cheeks, and Carney attacked it with vigor. The girl watched him, amused.
    â€œYou know,” he said cheerfully, “they serve what they call fish inland, but they mess it up in fancy ways and it tastes like nothing that ever swam in God’s good water. I went into a place that advertised ‘Sea Food’ somewhere, and asked the girl if they had tongues-and-sounds, or fried cheeks, say, like this—and she looked at me as if I’d asked for something out of the garbage can.”
    â€œBut Marina,” she persisted. “You said it had a meaning for you. What?”
    He frowned at his plate. “It’s hard to put in words. Maybe it hasn’t a meaning at all. Maybe it’s just the only place where I feel at home, because the people out there are the only friends I have. For weeks I’ve been knocking about eastern Canada like a lost soul, from city to city. Everybody scrambling—what for, I wonder? You’d think the world was going to end tomorrow and all hands had to get another dollar before the last trump stops the works. Everyone shoving someone else, and eyeing each other like a lot of sulky sled dogs on the Labrador, ready to snap at the first wrong move. Well, we’re not perfect on Marina. A few people thrown together on a sand bar, little jealousies, squabbles made up out of nothing, for a bit of excitement more than anything else—something to do. But on the whole we take life quietly. Clothes don’t mean much. Money’s nothing. You see? Nothing to shove each other for. Anyhow, you can’t go in for petty meanness on a place like that. God gets too good a chance to look at you.”
    Miss Jardine pushed out her lips. “I don’t think I’d like that. It sounds like a fly under a microscope.”
    â€œThat’s because you’ve always lived indoors, in this kind of madhouse.”
    â€œWrong! I was born on a farm, and before I came to the city I taught in country schools for several years.”
    â€œWhy did you leave?” He was astonished.
    â€œAmbition, Mr. Carney, just ambition. I wanted to earn a lot of money and wear smart clothes and go to theaters and dine in those wonderful places I’d seen in the movies on Saturday nights.” She looked about the drab