Dragon wrapped around a Celtic cross

The cross went up on Tuesday, and Mr Pryce came down from the chandlery to see it before the tide turned. He stood with his cap in both hands for a long while and said nothing, which from him is a speech. You'll want to know about the dragon, so I'll set it down the way Father told it to me, though you know he never told a thing straight.

The slate came from the top quarry, the blue-grey kind that rings when you tap it. Father's grandfather cut the knotwork, and he cut a serpent through it, coiled twice round the arms, with its wings spread wide over the sea side so the wind would find them. Harbour folk said it was to keep the boats in. Nobody believed that until the winter the Mary Anne went out past the mouth and came home with every man aboard, because the squall went round them as if something had shoved it.

Pryce's boy was on that boat. The dragon's head is turned to the water, and the studs along its jaw are brass that Father let me polish, so they catch the lamp at dusk and look like eyes. I painted the claws orange last night with the window open, and the smell of linseed drifted out over the wall toward the quay.

I don't know if any of it is true. I only know the wings are still there and the ropes are still tied. Come home at Easter and see it yourself.

Your brother, Tom