Ferriby — Marjorie Bowen

The place was a lonesome one -- lonely on a large scale. There were cottages near in twos and threes, an inn not a quarter of a mile away, a wheelwright's shop and a Primitive Methodist chapel, but Ferriby Grange found no company in these. The loneliness was beyond the recognition of most: the old house stood bereft of its kind, lonely for the days of joyous mirth and plenteous fullness that had so long ceased to be. There was only one friend left of all -- one true old friend, and that was the sea, and even the sea had changed. From the flat roof you looked out now upon a different coast-line and looked afar; the sea was three miles further off than in the days when the rough wall was built -- to keep it at bay. Ah, but the sun was the same and the winds, only they for that very reason, perhaps, scarcely seemed to ward off loneliness. When the sun touched the eastern windows on a May-day morning, radiant faces were no more there to peep over upheld flowers for the greetings of the sweethearts below, and at Yuletide the winds drove neither snow nor carol-singers before them as they used. The sunshine and the winds only raised sad memories. Within the house the great hearths were half of them dark and cold; secret places were forgotten and unopened year by year; in the garrets treasures of the past mouldered into the rubbish of to-day; the garden wearied for a lover's tread -- the great house was lonely.