The Magical Bond of the Sea

"The Magical Bond of the Sea" by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a captivating tale that weaves together the themes of nature, love, and the mysterious connections between humans and the ocean. Set against the backdrop of enchanting coastal landscapes, the story follows the lives of its characters as they navigate their intertwined fates, discovering the profound beauty and magic that the sea holds. Montgomery’s lyrical prose and rich imagery invite readers to explore deep emotional bonds, the allure of adventure, and the timeless wisdom found in the rhythm of the tides.

• Short story

								
A late September wind from the northwest was sweeping over the waters
of Racicot Harbour. It blew in, strong with the tang of the salt seas,
past the grim lighthouse rock on the one hand and the sandbars on the
other, up the long, narrow funnel of darkly blue water, until it
whistled among the masts of the boats at anchor and among the
stovepipe chimneys of the fishing village. It was a wind that sang and
piped and keened of many things--but what it sang to each listener was
only what was in that listener's heart. And Nora Shelley, standing at
the door of her father's bleached cottage on the grey sands, heard a
new strain in it. The wind had sung often to her of the outer world
she longed for, but there had never been the note of fulfilment in it
before.

There's a new life beyond, Nora, whistled the wind. A good life--and
it's yours for the taking. You have but to put out your hand and all
you've wished for will be in your grasp.

Nora leaned out from the door to meet the wind. She loved that
northwest gale; it was a staunch old friend of hers. Very slim and
straight was Nora, with a skin as white as the foam flakes crisping
over the sands, and eyes of the tremulous, haunting blue that deepens
on the water after a fair sunset. But her hair was as black as
midnight, and her lips blossomed out with a ripe redness against the
uncoloured purity of her face. She was far and away the most beautiful
of the harbour girls, but hardly the most popular. Men and women alike
thought her proud. Even her friends felt themselves called upon to
make excuses for her unlikeness to themselves.

Nora had dosed the door behind her to shut in the voices. She wanted
to be alone with the wind while she made her decision. Before her the
sandy shingle, made firm by a straggling growth of some pale sea-ivy,
sloped down to the sapphire cup of the harbour. Around her were the
small, uncouth houses of the village--no smaller or more uncouth than
the one which was her home--with children playing noisily on the paths
between them. The mackerel boats curtsied and nodded outside; beyond
them the sharp tip of Sandy Point was curdled white with seagulls.
Down at the curve of the cove a group of men were laughing and talking
loudly in front of French Joe's fish-house. This was the life that she
had always known.

Across the harbour, on a fir-fringed headland, stood Dalveigh. John
Cameron, childless millionaire, had built a summer cottage on that
point two years ago, and given it the name of the old ancestral estate
in Scotland. To the Racicot fishing folk the house and grounds were
as a dream of enchantment made real. Few of them had ever seen
anything like it.

Nora Shelley knew Dalveigh well. She had been the Camerons' guest many
times that summer, finding in the luxury and beauty of their
surroundings something that entered with a strange aptness into her
own nature. It was as if it were hers by right of fitness. And this
was the life that might be hers, did she so choose.

In reality, her choice was already made, and she knew it. But it
pleased her to pretend for a little time that it was not, and to dally
tenderly with-the old loves and emotions that tugged at her heart and
clamoured to be remembered.

Within, in the low-ceilinged living room, with its worn, uneven floor
and its blackened walls hung with fish nets and oilskins, four people
were sitting. John Cameron and his wife were given the seats of honour
in the middle of the room. Mrs. Cameron was a handsome, well-dressed
woman, with an expression that was discontented and, at times,
petulant. Yet her face had a good deal of plain common sense in it,
and not even the most critical of the Racicot folks could say that she
"put on airs." Her husband was a small, white-haired man, with a
fresh, young-looking face. He was popular in Racicot, for he mingled
freely with the sailors and fishermen. Moreover, Dalveigh was an
excellent market for fresh mackerel.

Nathan Shelley, in his favourite corner behind the stove, sat lurching
forward with his hands on his knees. He had laid aside his pipe out of
deference to Mrs. Cameron, and it was hard for him to think without
it. He wished his wife would go to work; it seemed uncanny to see her
idle. She had sat idle only once that he remembered--the day they had
brought Ned Shelley in, dank and dripping, after the August storm ten
years before. Mrs. Shelley sat by the crooked, small-paned window and
looked out down the harbour. The coat she had been patching for her
husband when the Camerons came still lay in her lap, and she had
folded her hands upon it. She was a big woman, slow of speech and
manner, with a placid, handsome face--a face that had not visibly
stirred even when she had heard the Camerons' proposition.

They wanted Nora--these rich people who had so much in life wanted the
blossom of girlhood that had never bloomed for them. John Cameron
pleaded his cause well.

"We will look on her as our own," he said at last. "We have grown to
love her this summer. She is beautiful and clever--she has a right to
more than Racicot can give her. You have other children--we are
childless. And we do not take her from you utterly. You will see her
every summer when we come to Dalveigh."

"It won't be the same thing quite," said Nathan Shelley drily. "She'll
belong to your life then--not ours. And no matter how many young ones
folks has, they don't want to lose none of 'em. But I dunno as we
ought to let our feelings stand in Nora's light. She's clever, and
she's been hankering for more'n we can ever give her. I was the same
way once. Lord, how I raged at Racicot! I broke away finally--went to
a city and got work. But it wasn't no use. I'd left it too long. The
sea had got into my blood. I toughed it out for two years, and then I
had to come back. I didn't want to, mark you, but I had to come. Been
here ever since. But maybe 'twill be different with the girl. She's
younger than I was; if the hankering for the sea and the life of the
shore hasn't got into her too deep, maybe she'll be able to cut loose
for good. But you don't know how the sea calls to one of its own."

Cameron smiled. He thought that this dry old salt was a bit of a poet
in his own way. Very likely Nora got her ability and originality from
him. There did not seem to be a great deal in the phlegmatic,
good-looking mother.

"What say, wife?" asked Shelley at last.

His wife had said in her slow way, "Leave it to Nora," and to Nora it
was left.

When she came in at last, her face stung to radiant beauty by the
northwest wind, she found it hard to tell them after all. She looked
at her mother appealingly.

"Is it go or stay, girl," demanded her father brusquely.

"I think I'll go," said Nora slowly. Then, catching sight of her
mother's face, she ran to her and flung her arms about her. "But I'll
never forget you, Mother," she cried. "I'll love you always--you and

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