Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast Part 42

A stretch of seven miles across a lonely prairie, with no other object for the eye to rest upon than a few bare hills or sunken ponds, brought us in sight of the village and of the sea.

The Siasconset of the past was neither more nor less than a collection of fishermen's huts, built of the simplest materials that would keep out wind and weather. In the beginnings of the English along our coast these little fishing-hamlets were called "stages." Other fishing-stages were at Weweeders, Peedee, Sesacacha, and Quidnet. Of these Siasconset alone has flourished. All early navigators and writers agree that the waters hereaway were abundantly stocked with the cod.

I found the village pleasantly seated along the margin of the bluff, that rises here well above the sea. Behind it the land swelled again so as to intercept the view of the town. Underneath the cliff is a terrace of sand, to which a flight of steps, eked out with a foot-path, a.s.sists the descent. Here were lying a number of dories, and one or two singular-looking fish-carts, with a cask at one end for a wheel. A fish-house, with brush flakes about it, and a pile of wreck lumber, completed what man might have a t.i.tle to. This terrace pitches abruptly into the sea, with a regularity of slope like the glacis of a fortress; It would never do to call the Atlantic a ditch, yet you seem standing on a parapet of sand. The sand here appears composed of particles of granite; in other parts of the island it is like the drift at Cape Cod.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOMES OF THE FISHERMEN, SIASCONSET.]

The village is an odd collection of one-story cottages, so alike that the first erected might have served as a pattern for all others. Iron cranes projected from angles of the houses, on which to hang lanterns at night-fall, in place of street-lamps. Fences, neatly whitewashed or painted, inclosed each householder's possession, and in many instances blooming flower-beds caused an involuntary glance at the window for their guardians. On many houses were the names of wrecks that had the seeming of grave-stones overlooking the sands that had entombed the ships that wore them. In one front yard was the carved figure of a woman that had been filliped by the foam of many a sea. Fresh from the loftier buildings and broader streets of the town, this seemed like one of those miniature villages that children delight in.

Looking off seaward, I could descry no sails. The last objects on the horizon line were white-crested breakers combing above the "gulf or ship-swallower" lying in wait beneath them. It is a dangerous sea, and Nantucket Shoals have obtained a terrible celebrity--unequaled, perhaps, even by the Goodwin Sands, that mariners shudder at the mention of. If a ship grounds on the Shoal she is speedily wrenched in pieces by the power of the surf. They will tell you of a brig (the _Poinsett_) that came ash.o.r.e on the south side with her masts in her, apparently uninjured. Two days' pounding strewed the beach with her timbers. "A ship on the Shoals!" is a sound that will quicken the pulses of men familiar with danger. I suppose the calamitous boom of a minute-gun has often roused the little fishing-hamlet to exertions of which a few human lives were the guerdon. Heard amidst the accompaniments of tempest, gale, and the thunder of the breakers, it might well thrill the listener with fear; or, if unheard, the lightning flashes would tell the watchers that wood and iron still held together, and that hope was not yet extinct.

It may be that the great Nantucket South Shoal, forty-five miles in breadth, by fifty in length, tends to the preservation of the island, for which it is a breakwater. The great extent of shallows on both sides of the island, with the known physical changes, would almost justify the belief that these sands and this island once formed part of the main-land of New England.

Much is claimed, doubtless with justice, for the salubrity of Siasconset air. Many resort thither during the heats of midsummer. I found denizens of Nantucket who, it would seem, had enough of sea and sh.o.r.e at home, domesticated in some wee cottage. The season over, houses are shut up, and the village goes into winter-quarters. The greensward, elevation above the sea, and pure air are its credentials. I saw it on a sunny day, looking its best.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SEA-BLUFF, SIASCONSET.]

The sand is coa.r.s.e-grained and very soft. There is no beach on the island firm enough for driving, or even tolerable walking. The waves that came in here projected themselves fully forty feet up the escarpment of the bank that I have spoken of. I recollect that, having chosen what I believed a safe position, I was overtaken by a wave, and had to beat a hasty retreat. Bathing here is, on account of the under-tow and quicksands, attended with hazard, and ought not to be attempted except with the aid of ropes. Willis talks of the tenth wave.

I know about the third of the swell, for I have often watched it. The first and second are only forerunners of the mighty one. The dories come in on it. A breaker fell here every five seconds, by the watch.

We returned by the foreland of Sankoty Head, on which a light-house stands. From an eminence here the sea is visible on both sides of the island. When built, this light was unsurpa.s.sed in brilliancy by any on the coast, and was considered equal to the magnificent beacon of the Morro. Fishermen called it the blazing star. Its flashes are very full, vivid, and striking, and its position is one of great importance, as warning the mariner to steer wide of the great Southern Shoal. Seven miles at sea the white flash takes a reddish hue.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HAULING A DORY OVER THE HILLS, NANTUCKET.]

The following afternoon I walked across the island to the south sh.o.r.e at Surfside, a distance of perhaps three miles or more. A south-west gale that had prevailed for twenty-four hours led me to expect an angry and tumultuous sea; nor was I disappointed: the broad expanse between sh.o.r.e and horizon was a confused ma.s.s of foam and broken water. It was a mournful sea: not a sail nor a living soul was in sight. A few sand-birds and plover piped plaintively to the hoa.r.s.e diapason of the billows.

Here I saw a sunset in a gale; the sun, as the sailors say, "setting up shrouds and backstays"--screened from view by a ma.s.s of dark clouds, yet pouring down from behind them through interstices upon the bounds of the sea, the rays having somewhat the appearance of golden ropes arising from the ocean and converging to an unseen point.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIGHT-HOUSE, SANKOTY HEAD, NANTUCKET.]

I seated myself in one of the dories on the beach and gazed my fill. Say what you will, there is a mighty fascination in the sea. Darkness surprised me before I had recrossed the lonely moor, and I held my way, guided by the deep cart-ruts, until the lights of the town twinkled their welcome before me. It was my last night on sea-girt Nantucket. I do not deny that I left it with reluctance.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FOOTNOTES:

[248] Zaccheus Macy, in his account of the island, written in 1792, says none had been taken up to that time--"a great loss to the islanders."

[249] The Indian name Tuckanuck signifies a loaf of bread.

[250] Rev. F. C. Ewer, of New York.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEWPORT, FROM FORT ADAMS.]

CHAPTER XXII.

NEWPORT OF AQUIDNECK.

"This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses."--_Macbeth._

Newport is an equivoque. It is old, and yet not; grave, though gay; opulent and poor; splendid and mean; populous or deserted. As the only place in New England where those who flee from one city are content to inhabit another, it is anomalous.

In his "Trois Mousquetaires" Alexander Dumas makes his giant, Porthos, encounter a ludicrous adventure. The guardsman is the complacent possessor of a magnificent golden sword-belt, the envy of his comrades, until on one unlucky day it is discovered that the half concealed beneath his cloak is nothing but leather; whereupon some sword-thrusts occur. It was M. Besmeaux, afterward governor of the Bastile, who was the real hero of the sword-belt--half gold, half leather--that Dumas has hung on the shoulders of his gigantic guardsman.

Newport's ocean side is belted with modern villas, costly, showy, and ornate. They mask the town in splendid succession, as if each had been built to surpa.s.s its neighbor. This is the Newport of to-day. Behind it, old, gray, and commonplace by comparison, is the Newport of other days.

The difference between the two is very marked. The old town is the effete body into which the new is infusing young blood, warming and invigorating it into new life. If the figure were permissible, we should say the Queen of Aquidneck had drunk of the elixir of life, so unexampled is the rapidity with which she transfigures herself.

I like Newport because it is old, quaint, and peculiar. Though far from insensible to its difficult feats in architecture, I did not come to see fine houses. To me they embody nothing besides the idea of wealth and luxurious ease. Many of them are as remarkable for elegance as are others for ugliness of design; yet I found it much the same as walking in Fifth Avenue or Beacon Street. They are at first bewildering, then monotonous; or, as Ruskin says of types of form, mere form, "You learn not to see them. You don't look at them."

I said Newport was commonplace, and I said it with mental reservation.

It has a matchless site, glorious bay, and delicious climate, that many have been willing, perhaps a little too willing, to compare with Italy.

If we have in New England any phase of climate we may safely match with that favored land,[251] I frankly concede Newport possesses it. The Gulf Stream approaches near enough to temper in summer the harshness of sea-breezes, and the rigor of cold northern winds in winter. The only faults I had to find with the summer and autumn aspects of Newport climate were the fogs and humidity of the nights. The pavements are frequently wet as if by light showers. This condition of the atmosphere is the plague of laundresses and hair-dressers at the great houses: the ringlets you see in Newport are natural.

When at the Isles of Shoals, we were a "thin under-waistcoat warmer"

than on the main-land. Neal says it is a coat warmer in winter at Newport than at Boston. I remarked that evening promenaders in the streets there were more thinly clothed than would be considered prudent elsewhere. In Newport, according to Neal, it would lose much point to say a man was without a coat to his back. Mr. Cooper, in the "Red Rover," calls attention to the magnificent harbor of Newport in the language of the practiced seaman. It fully meets all the requisites of easy approach, safe anchorage, and quiet basin. Isles and promontories, frowning with batteries, shield it from danger or insult. The verdure of the sh.o.r.es is of the most brilliant green, and grows quite to the water's edge, or to the verge of the cliffs. In a calm day, when the water is ruffled only by light airs, the tints of sea and sky are scarcely different: then the bay really looks like

"Un pezzo di cielo caduto in terra."

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD FORT, DUMPLING ROCKS.]

In approaching Newport from sea, after weathering much-dreaded Point Judith,[252] we shall fall in with the light-vessel anch.o.r.ed off Brenton's Reef, the extreme south-west point of the island of Rhode Island. At the same time the light-house on Beaver Tail[253] flashes greeting, and we may now enter the port with confidence. Pa.s.sing beside the "Dumplings" and the old round tower, perched on a projecting and almost insulated rock, we steer under the walls of Fort Adams.[254]

Sleepy fishing-boats, coming in with the morning's flood, are sent, with rattling blocks, and sails idly flapping, reeling and rocking on big waves caused by the majestic onward march of our great steamer; the beat of the paddles comes audibly back from rocks washed for a moment by our attendant wave. As we round the fortress the bugles play. A ball goes quickly up to the very top of the flag-staff; there is a flash, and a roar of the morning gun; and when the smoke drifts slowly before the breeze, we see the dear old flag blowing out clear, with every stripe still there, and never a reproach in one of them. At our right, and close insh.o.r.e, is Lime Rock Light, with its a.s.sociations of female heroism.[255] At the left is Goat Island, long and low, with Fort Wolcott and pleasant cottages for the officers of the torpedo station.[256] Beyond, rising tier above tier, with the beautiful spire of Trinity Church in its midst, is Newport.

Newport has been compared to the Lothians and to the Isle of Wight, the British Eden. By all old travelers it was admitted to be the paradise of New England. Its beautiful and extensive bay reminds Scotsmen of the Clyde. In fact, every traveled person at once estimates it with what has. .h.i.therto impressed him most--an involuntary but sure recognition of its charms.

Previous to the Revolution, Newport was the fourth commercial town in the colonies, once having more than nine thousand inhabitants. It was at first tributary to Boston, sending its corn, pork, and tobacco to be exchanged for European goods. Its commercial recovery from the prostration in which the old war left it was again arrested by that of 1812; and this time it did not rise again. The whale-fishery was introduced and abandoned: writers of this period describe it as lifeless, with every mark of dilapidation and decay. The salubrity of the climate of Newport had long been acknowledged, and before 1820 it had become a place of resort for invalids from the Southern States and the West Indies. This one original gift has ever since been out at interest, until, where a few acres of gra.s.s once flourished, you might cover the ground with dollars before you became its owner.[257]

At Newport the visitor is challenged by past and present, each having large claims on his attention. I spent much of my time among old houses, monuments, and churches. Some of these are in public places and are easily found, while others are hidden away in forgotten corners, or screened from observation by the walls of intervening buildings. As is inevitable in such a place, the visitor will unwittingly pa.s.s by many objects that he will be curious to see, and in retracing his footsteps will have occasion to remark how much a sc.r.a.p of history or tradition adds to the charm of an otherwise uninteresting structure.

The town along the water resembles Salem, except that it has neither its look of antiquity nor its dilapidation. Here the princ.i.p.al thoroughfare is Thames Street, long, narrow, and almost wholly built of wood. The narrowness of Thames Street has been referred to the encroachments of builders of a former time, the old houses standing at some distance back from the pavement being pointed to as evidence of the fact. I can only vouch for glimpses of some very habitable and inviting old residences in back courts and alleys opening upon the street. Here, too, old gambrel-roofed houses are plenty as blackberries in August. They have a portly, aldermanic look, with great breadth of beam, like ships of their day. When these houses that now stand end to the street had pleasant garden spots between, a walk here would have been worth the taking. When there were no sidewalks, it meant something to give the wall to your neighbor, and tact and breeding were requisite to know when to demand and when to decline it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD-TIME HOUSES.]

In Thames Street are several imperturbable notables in brick or wood.

The City Hall--for as early as 1784 Newport had reached the dignity of a city--is usually first encountered. Notwithstanding they tell you it was one of Peter Harrison's[258] buildings, it is very ordinary-looking, inside and out. It was built on arches, which indicates the lower floor to have been intended as a public promenade; and shows that the architect had the Old Royal Exchange in mind. For some time it was used as a market. This house came into the little world of Newport in 1763. A word of admiration from Allston has long been treasured.

In this building I saw hanging the escutcheon of William Coddington, who, as every body at all familiar with the history of Rhode Island knows, was one of the founders of Newport, and first governor of the little body politic organized upon the Isle of Aquidneck.

We have decided to cast a glance backward, and, to know our ground, must pay our duty to this old founder. William Coddington, Esquire, came to New England in 1630 with the Boston colonists, as one of the a.s.sistants named in their charter. He was several times rechosen to this important position, became a leading merchant in Boston, and is said to have built the first brick house there.[259] The house he afterward built and lived in at Newport, of the quaint old English pattern, was standing within the recollection of many older inhabitants.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RESIDENCE OF GOVERNOR CODDINGTON, NEWPORT, 1641.]