Pencil sketch of a compass rose with N, E, S and W labels and the words Psalms 32:8 beneath, shown as a possible tattoo design in black and grey.

Compass rose sketch with Psalms 32:8

Geometric · Black and grey · Flash

A hand-drawn pencil sketch of a compass rose with an eight-pointed star, shaded in black and grey, with the letters N, E, S and W at the cardinal points. A dotted outer ring and a inner ring of small rectangular marks frame the star, and the handwritten words Psalms 32:8 sit beside the lower right of the design. The drawing is set on plain paper with a yellow pencil lying alongside it.

Geometric Compass Compass rose Star Lettering Psalm Scripture reference Sketch

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The fog came down over the Fen road before the last lorry had cleared the showground, and Ada Penrose sat on the step of the lead wagon with the old brass compass in her lap, trying to make its needle agree with the lane. Her uncle had won it at a shooting gallery in Boston, the glass cracked across the lid, the card beneath still painted with its eight-pointed star and the letters N, E, S and W picked out in faded red.

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'Can you see the verge?' Samuel called down from the cab. 'No.' 'Then read me what's written inside the lid, and be quick about it.' She tilted it toward the dim bulb above the door. Someone had scratched a line there with a pin: I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. 'Psalms,' she said. 'Thirty-two, eight.' Samuel grunted. 'That's no map. That's a promise, and the man who made it never drove a horsebox down a drain in February.'

The wagons crept on at a walk. Then old Bess, who had pulled the fair for nineteen summers and never once been asked her opinion, stopped dead and lowered her head. Ada heard the harness creak and felt the lead wagon tilt as the back wheels slid off the crown of the road onto the causeway, hard and level under the gravel. The needle in her palm swung and shivered, then settled north, away from the road they had been following, and she understood that the mare had been steering by something else all along.

Ten minutes later the great wheel came up out of the grey, its lights turning slowly, and Samuel swore under his breath with relief. Ada put the compass back in her pocket without looking at it again. The star still pointed the wrong way for the lane, but the lane had never been where she was going. Bess blew through her nose and stamped, pleased with herself.