She knew that her mother had probably spoken the truth when she said that he would not come . Rachel felt that her marriage vows would be lacking in some indefinable sacredness if her father were not by to hear them spoken . Twenty-five years before this , David Spencer and Isabella Chiswick had been married . Spiteful people said there could be no doubt that Isabella had married David for love , since he had neither lands nor money to tempt her into a match of bargain and sale . David was a handsome fellow , with the blood of a seafaring race in his veins . He had been a sailor , like his father and grandfather before him ; but , when he married Isabella , she induced him to give up the sea and settle down with her on a snug farm her father had left her . Isabella liked farming , and loved her fertile acres and opulent orchards . She abhorred the sea and all that pertained to it , less from any dread of its dangers than from an inbred conviction that sailors were `` low '' in the social scale -- a species of necessary vagabonds . In her eyes there was a taint of disgrace in such a calling . David must be transformed into a respectable , home-abiding tiller of broad lands . For five years all went well enough . If , at times , David 's longing for the sea troubled him , he stifled it , and listened not to its luring voice . He and Isabella were very happy ; the only drawback to their happiness lay in the regretted fact that they were childless . Then , in the sixth year , came a crisis and a change . Captain Barrett , an old crony of David 's , wanted him to go with him on a voyage as mate . At the suggestion all David 's long-repressed craving for the wide blue wastes of the ocean , and the wind whistling through the spars with the salt foam in its breath , broke forth with a passion all the more intense for that very repression . He must go on that voyage with James Barrett -- he MUST ! That over , he would be contented again ; but go he must . His soul struggled within him like a fettered thing . Isabella opposed the scheme vehemently and unwisely , with mordant sarcasm and unjust reproaches .
The latent obstinacy of David 's character came to the support of his longing -- a longing which Isabella , with five generations XXXXX land-loving ancestry behind her , could not understand at all .
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