A Gift from the Sea and Other Stories

By Alan W. Muir

Hopefully some pleasure may be had from my stories, which I enjoyed writing. Each different, I feel, but nonetheless from my imagination. Where did they come from, and why? Like most things in life at times, they arrived and wanted to be told. Perhaps they question what is reality, as opposed to dream, and that can have us going along a long, long timeless road where there is no clear answer, if an answer at all. As stated at the outset, they are to be taken as enjoyable stories, nothing more than that.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Apr 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781528981446

Alan W. Muir

Alan W. Muir is a reserved and reflective person and can be spectral at times. He is open to new ideas and tries dealing with life in a nonchalant manner. The planet and beyond interests him, time and history taken lightly, combined with thought.

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About the Author

Alan W. Muir is a reserved and reflective person and can be spectral at times. He is open to new ideas and tries dealing with life in a nonchalant manner. The planet and beyond interests him, time and history taken lightly, combined with thought.

Dedication

To Beatrice and Laura,

my wife and daughter.

Copyright Information ©

Alan W. Muir (2021)

The right of Alan W. Muir to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528981439 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528981446 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2021)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.

25, Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgement

To all artists and persons who try to make life a positive experience, or at least bearable.

A Gift from the Sea

They say in these parts, sometimes the sea gives a gift, for he who so loves the sea, she; she too will give her love in return. But she also knows deep into the hearts of those who will deceive her and be false to her and not pure of heart and so can be merciless in her vengeance.

The old tower lay some minutes from the shore of the sea, set there on a distant promontory and some ten minutes by horse from the fish-smelling village of white painted houses and rustic streets. It seemed a place time had hardly touched or even cared to know about. The people going about their daily chores as they had always done for over two thousand years or more. The sea and fruit was their business. The sea was deep in their ancestral blood and had made them as they were. Kind, but at times hard but always just. A stranger who perhaps would pass their way was always left with a good impression. In times past, they say, the tower had been used by smugglers and that a tunnel led from it down to the sea and some caves where they said wine and other materials of such value were hidden away. Well, that is what the locals would tell their children before they would go to sleep. But the same parents wouldn’t allow their children to venture near it, the excuse was that it was old and falling down and they could have an accident. But there was seemingly other reasons not spoken off but a closely guarded secret was kept. Such things of secret rights and so on. But that as pure hearsay on the part of the older members of the village. Some said that on certain nights if you happened to pass by it, you could hear music and song and much laughter as if someone were having a feast or something. But more than once this was dismissed as old wives tales. The tower had been in fact built by a group of Knight Templars, who had ventured far from their ladies, castles, comforts and lands in the north to fight the infidel as they were known. One of the schoolteachers of the village knew the story very well, also one or two others who happened to be interested in history. But the majority of the town was more interested in work, money and the daily task of just living. For them it was the old tower of those men from the north who had once come and passed their time there, sailing then away in ships of setting white sail to some land or lands in the south. It had been in fact Sir Paul De Thomas and his brother who had built it for themselves and friends. It was considered an adequate and practical place to stop on their journey from the north of Europe to the southern Mediterranean. And many a fine tale they had to tell one another when united together within its walls. When would flow like water and much food to be had. Sir Paul had died on one of those long tiresome sea journeys he often took and his brother Mathew had no stomach after his brother’s death to return to the tower and so it was left to fall into disrepair until I decided to buy it, perhaps out of love for the old, or madness.

Like most things which had happened in my life, I hadn’t really planned in being out of my country at all, certainly for a long duration; well, I had inherited a certain quantity of money,