By The Sea Part 3

V.

There is a low, pleasant boat-shop, close on the sh.o.r.e of a little arm of the sea. The tide ebbs and flows before its wide double doors, and sometimes rises so high as to flow the sills; then you have to walk across in front of the shop on a plank, laid upon iron ballast. There is a little wharf or pier close at hand, the outer end of which is always going to be repaired. There are two or three other shops near by, and about them is the pleasant litter of a boat-yard. In the cove before them lie at their moorings in the late afternoon a fleet of fifteen or twenty fishing and pleasure boats, all cat-rigged, all of one general build, wide, shoal, with one broad sail, all painted white, by the custom of the place, and all or nearly all kept neat and clean: they are all likely enough to be called upon now and then for sailing-parties.

Often of a bright afternoon in summer the sails will all be up, as the boats swing at their floats: then you have all the effect of a regatta in still life.

The shop faces down the bay of which this inlet is the foot, and as you look out from your seat within, on a wooden stool, the great door frames in a landscape of peaceful beauty. The opening to the sea is closed to the view. Simply you can see the two white sand-cliffs through which it makes. The bay is a mile in length, perhaps, and of half that width.

From its white, sandy sh.o.r.es rise gentle hills, bare to the sun or covered with a low growth of woods. To the right are low-lying pastures and marshes, with here and there a grazing cow. At the head of the bay the valley of a stream can be faintly distinguished, while in the distance there is a faint suggestion of a few scattered houses on the upper waters. At one or two points masts of boats rise from the gra.s.s of the inland, and sometimes a sail is seen threading its slow way amid the trees.

The shop is a favorite resort. You may go there in the early morning, in the late forenoon, or in the afternoon; whenever you go you will find there more or less company. There is a sort of social, hospitable atmosphere about the place which is attractive in the extreme. Sometimes there is a good deal of conversation; sometimes there is a comfortable silence of good-fellowship. There is more or less knitting there and crocheting; often in the afternoon the women from near by take their work there to enjoy the view, and the fresh air which draws up there as nowhere else.

There is a good deal of religious discussion there, although the atmosphere of the shop is not entirely religious, as you may see by some of the papers lying about, and the cuts pasted up on the walls. Chief is a picture representing a scene in the life of the prophet Jonah. Jonah and the seamen are drawing lots to see who shall be cast over. Jonah has just drawn the ace of spades.

There are various other pictures on the walls,--prints of famous yachts, charts, advertis.e.m.e.nts of regattas, sailing rules of yacht-clubs.

Nowhere is the science of boat-building and boat-sailing studied with greater closeness than in that shop. Many a successful racer has been built there. There are models of boats pinned up against the wall,--models which to the common eye hardly vary at all, but to a trained perception differ widely. There are oars lying about the shop, oil-skin suits, a compa.s.s, charts, in round tin cases, boat hardware, and coils of new rope.

The little pier has its periods of activity and life, like the great world outside. At three or four o'clock, in the gray dawn, fishermen appear, singly, or two by two; there is often then a failure of wind, and they have to get out to sea by heavy rowing or by the drift of the tide. Then there is silence for some hours, and when the world awakes the cove is nearly deserted. At seven o'clock begins the life of the shop. Amateur fishermen appear,--boarders from New York or visiting sons from Brockton. Later still, little parties come down,--a knot of young fellows and laughing girls with bright-colored wraps, bound on a sailing-party to Katameset, with a matron, and with some well-salted man to steer the boat, perhaps in slippers and a dressing-gown. They go singing out to sea. Then come a party of bathers,--ladies and little children, with towels and blue suits, and all the paraphernalia of pails and wooden shovels. Then will come perhaps a couple of girls, to sketch.

They will encamp anywhere upon the sh.o.r.e, call into their service some small amphibious creature to tip a skiff up on its side to make an effective scene, and proceed with the wonders of their art. Soon the bathers return. They have been only a little way down the narrows, and come back to dinner at one. The fishermen come in from three to four, unless they happen to be becalmed; there is a bustle then of getting out ice; of slitting and weighing and packing fish, and loading them into wagons to be carted to the railway. Then there is a lull until the sailing-parties return, perhaps at five, perhaps at six, perhaps not until the turn of the tide or the evening breeze brings them home.

All the time the quiet life of the boat-shop goes on,--its labor, its discussions on politics and religion, its criticism of yachts. All day long small boys play about the pier, race in skiffs or in such insignificant sailing-craft as may be available, and every half-hour, at the initiative of some infant leader, all doff their little print waists and short trousers and "go in," regardless of the sketchers on the sh.o.r.e.

It was a bright, fresh day. The air was as clear as crystal. Joe had been gone since dawn with Henry Price. The wind had been blowing hard from the north for a dozen hours, and, as the saying is, had kicked up a sea. On the shoal the waves were rolling heavily, and since three o'clock the tide had been running against the wind, and the seas had been broken every way. But to Henry Price, and with that boat, rough seas, from March to November, were only what a rude mountain road would be to you or me. If his wife, toward afternoon, shading her eyes at the south door, ever felt anxious about him, it was a woman's foolish fear; it was only because she thought with concern of that--internal neuralgia was it?--which her husband brought back from the war; which seized him at rare intervals and enfeebled him for days. He made light of it, and never spoke of it out of the house. There was no better boatman on that sh.o.r.e. Let alone that one possibility of weakness, and the ocean had a hard man to deal with when it dealt with him.

They had been gone all day. It had been rough, and they would come in wet. This wind would not die down; they were sure to make a quick run, and would be in before dark.

It was late in the afternoon. James was sitting in the shop with one or two companions, engaged in a loud discussion. He had been discoursing upon all his favorite themes. He had been declaiming upon the dangers from Catholic supremacy and the subserviency of the Irish vote to the Church of Rome, and upon the absolute necessity of the supremacy of the Democratic party; upon the Apocalypse and the seven seals. He had been maintaining the literal infallibility of the Scriptures, and the necessity of treating some portions as legendary. It would be hard to say what inconsistent views he had not set forth within the s.p.a.ce of the past hour; and all this with the utmost intensity, and yet with the utmost good-humor, always ready to acknowledge a point against himself,--the more readily if entirely fallacious,--with a burst of hearty laughter.

At last there was a pause. Something had called out of doors the two or three men who were within. There was nothing to disturb the peaceful beauty of the afternoon. It was blowing hard outside, but this was a sheltered spot, and the wind was little felt.

As James sat there silent, with no one at hand but the owner of the shop, who was busy upon the keel of a new boat, a fisherman came in and took a seat, with an affectation of ease and nonchalance; in a moment another followed; two or three more came in, then others.

The carpenter stopped his work, and shading his eyes with his hand, seemed to be looking down the bay.

There was a dead silence for a few moments. Then James spoke. But it was not the voice of James. It was not that cheery and hearty voice which had just been filling the shop with mirth. It was a voice harsh, forced, mechanical,--the voice of a man paralyzed with terror.

"Why don't you tell me?" he said; "is it Henry, or--is it the boy?"

But no one spoke.

"You don't need to tell me nothing," he said, in the same strange tone of paralysis and fear, "I knowed it when Ba.s.sett first come in. I knowed it when the rest come in and closed in round me and did n't say nothing."

He sat still a moment. Then he rose abruptly and turned to the landward door. He stumbled over a stool which was in his way, and would have fallen but that one of the men sprang forward and held him. He plunged hastily out of the door. Just outside, in the shade of a small wild cherry-tree, was a bucket of clams which he had dug; across the bucket was an old hoe worn down to nothing. He stopped and mechanically took up the pail and hoe. Ba.s.sett stood by the door and looked after him as he went along the foot-path toward his home. There was a scantling fence close by. He went over it in his old habitual fashion: first he set over the bucket of clams and the hoe; then one leg went over and then the other; he sat for an instant on the top slat and then slid down. He took up his burden and went his way over the fields. In a moment he was lost to sight behind a bit of rising ground. Then he reappeared, making his way over the fields at his own heavy gait, until he was lost to sight behind a clump of trees close to his own door.

They did not find Henry and the boy that night. It was not until the next day that the bodies were washed ash.o.r.e. One of the searchers, walking along the beach in the early dawn, found them both. He came upon Henry first; he was lying on the sand upon his face. A little farther on, gently swayed by the rising tide, lay Joe and his dog. Joe lay on his side, precisely as if asleep; the dog was in his arms.

The boy lies in the burying-ground on the hill, near the stone and the weeping-willow which mourn the youth who met his untimely death in 1830, in the launching of the brig. There is a rose-bush at the grave, and few bright days pa.s.s in summer that there is not a bunch of homely flowers laid at its foot. It is the spot to which all Mrs. Parsons's thoughts now tend, and her perpetual pilgrimage. It is too far for her to walk both there and back; but often a neighbor is going that way, with a lug-wagon or an open cart or his family carriage,--it makes no difference which,--and it is easy to get a ride. It is a good-humored village. Everybody stands ready to do a favor, and n.o.body hesitates to ask one. Often on a bright afternoon Mrs. Parsons will watch from her front window the "teams" that pa.s.s, going to the bay. When she sees one which is likely to go in the right direction on its return from the bay,--everybody knows in which direction she will wish to go,--she will run hastily to the door, and hail it.

"Whoa! Sh-h! Whoa! How d'do, Mis' Parsons?"

"Be you going straight home when you come back? Well, then, if it won't really be no trouble at all, I 'll be at the gap when you come by; I won't keep you waiting a minute. It 's such a nice, sunshiny afternoon, I thought I 'd like to go up and sit awhile, and take some posies."