CHAPTER XVII.
[FESSENDEN'S ISLAND].
The steamer throbbed and snorted on its voyage round the bay, like some big amphibian of palæozoic times, parting the glassy waters right and left, and leaving a long regurgitating trail of swelling waves and eddies in its wake. The sun, now overhead, shed down his beams with an unmitigated ardour, and the water cast back the glare with blistering intensity. There really had arisen a languid air-current from the shore, as Walter Petty had predicted; but the boat was now heading down the bay towards the open sea, and travelling with the breeze, so that on board it seemed to have fallen calm, and was hot and stifling to a degree.
The chat among the voyagers flickered low, and then went out, like the flame of candles in an unwholesome well. Every one sought for shade, and gasped beneath an umbrella, or in some darkened corner of the saloon, collapsed and listless. But the steamer snorted on its way, regardless of their comfort, and gleeful, as it seemed, in the increasing heat; for now she belched forth smoke, and weltered in it, letting it curl and twist about her fore and aft, borne on the chasing breeze--as though the sportive monster were shaking out her mane, as is said to be the wont of the sea-serpent when he rises from the deep to fright lone mariners. She had grown fiendish in her mood, that misguided steamer, filling the air with foulness, and showering smuts on the white umbrellas, the fresh toilets, and even the dainty nose of beauty. It grew intolerable, and the passengers might have risen in mutiny and altered the vessel's course, but that the heat had left them limp and lacking energy. They only groaned and imprecated; while the steersman stood like a wooden image by the wheel, one turn of which would have blown away the mischief, looking at their misery with unwinking eyes, and laughing mayhap down deep within his wooden ribs.
The mouth of the bay was reached in time, and the islands with their straits and narrows, and winding channels running in between; and beyond, the blue Atlantic. A new life breathed on them the moment they passed the cape which terminates the bay. Like pent-up invalids escaping from a sickroom, they held up their faces to the sky to drink great breaths of freshness. Out there it is always cool, however the sun may beat. They threaded the channels among the islands, and then sailed out into the far-extending blue, and were refreshed.
Noon was long passed, although they had breakfasted early, before it occurred to any one to feel hungry; but at length the idea of luncheon presented itself to many minds about the same time, as something which would be agreeable. The steamer was put about, and they returned back among the islands. One of them, Fessenden's Island by name, lay most open to the ocean, and farther out than the others. On this they landed. It seemed intended by nature for their purpose, having a little cove with shelving bottom which admitted their vessel, and a seaward boundary of rocky ledges sinking perpendicularly in deep water on the inward side, so that they could moor themselves to the shore as comfortably as at a wharf, without the inconvenient intervention of the boats.
The hotel servants quickly got their hampers landed, and soon the repast was spread in the slowly broadening shadow of neighbouring rocks, while the party encamped beneath their umbrellas on the scrubby sea-grass, or fetched themselves seats from the ship hard by. The clatter of knives and plates, the popping of corks, and the din of voices, startled the sea-fowl where they perched overhead; they screeched and fluttered angrily at the unwonted disturbance, and taking to the wing, they wheeled and circled in the air above, surveying the intruders, and eyeing the meats which fear alone prevented their pouncing down on and bearing away, and finally, with a parting scream, flew seaward in a long white trail and disappeared.
The tide had turned. Two hours were allowed to spend on shore. After that, the steamer was to blow its whistle, and they must re-embark and get away, or the ship would be left stranded by the ebb, to await the following tide. The party having refreshed, broke up, and wandered apart as chance directed, to explore the island. Mrs Naylor found herself comfortable in her chair. Uneven walking over rocks presented no attractions. Digestion and fresh air, combined with snatches of light reading and chit-chat, seemed a more rational enjoyment. "But, Margaret, my dear, I will not interfere with your more energetic tastes," she said; "you can go, if you like, and scramble on the rocks like the rest. I shall do nicely with these ladies. Mr Wilkie, I am sure, will kindly see that you do not fall over a precipice."
Mr Wilkie rose alertly, and Margaret followed. She had meant to go away more quietly, later on, under the care of Walter Petty, whom she noticed lingering within call. He was so devotedly kind and respectful, that the girl could not but have a kindness for him. He would have liked to go, she saw, and he would have answered better for the purpose she had in view; though it was not, as he might fondly hope, to purr soft nothings in sequestered nooks. However, fate and her mother had imposed the more self-satisfied and confident gallant, and she must submit; though she felt a qualm of self-reproach in meeting the other's glance, in which disappointment seemed blended with a shade of remonstrance. Had she not shown a preference for him in the boat over that long-tongued rival, whom he cordially detested?--turned away from his longwinded rigmarole about travel, to ask sensible information from himself? There was no understanding those girls, and no use trusting them. And yet this one was so--so--what was she not, in fact? But it was desolating, all the same. He could not bring himself to join any one else, though there were "fellows" as well as girls who would have been glad of his company. There was his pipe, however, that silent friend, so soothing and so unobtrusive in its consolations. He would have recourse to that; and scrambling out to the extremity of the ledge beyond the steamboat, he sat him down beside the sad sea wave and blew a melancholy cloud.
Margaret and Wilkie scrambled along the shore, made difficult with rocks and heaped-up boulders. They clambered briskly enough until they had doubled a promontory which secluded them from observation, and then Mr Peter heaved a sigh of mingled relief and exhaustion.
"What an abominable way we have come, Miss Naylor! I am fairly blown. Here is a smooth rock at last; let us sit and enjoy the view."
"I am not tired at all, Mr Wilkie. Let us get on."
"I do not think we can, Miss Margaret. The shore grows steeper. We should have to take to those rocks lower down, all wet and slimy. It is scarcely safe. Look at the view from here! Look at the expanse of sea! It might be the Mediterranean, so blue and sunny. And those banks of cloud along the horizon--are they not fine?"
"Very fine, Mr Wilkie, but I want to see the island."
"My dear young lady, islands are all the same, and one part of one of them is just like another part. We need not flounder farther than we have come already, to know this one by heart. It is ditto all over--rocks sticking out of the water to support a little earth and a few sea-birds."
"But I have never been upon an island before, except those wooded ones on the St Lawrence, which do not at all answer to your description. They are nests floating on the water, and simply lovely. I want to see more of this one. Our St Lawrence islands are covered with trees. Are there none here?"
"Too exposed here, you may be sure. A gooseberry-bush would be blown down in the winter gales, not to speak of a tree. Besides, we really cannot go farther along this detestable shore. The sharp stones will cut the boot-soles off your feet."
"Then let us go inland. Why should we keep to the shore? The ground slopes up easily enough; let us go to the top and gain a bird's-eye view of the island. No, really, I could not think of sitting down. We shall have more than enough of that in the steamboat before we get home."
And so the young man, finding he could not persuade, had perforce to let himself be persuaded, and follow when he would have led--or rather, sat down.
The slope was not very steep, though it was longer than Peter would have expected a walk on so small an island could be; but at length they reached the rounded flatness of the summit, and looked around. The island spread out beneath on every side, and the sister islands were marshalled north and south like sentinels to guard the inner waters. Lippenstock Bay lay within them, a burnished glass throwing back the sunshine; and the country beyond looked higher, more varied and important than when seen from the water-level. An unmistakable breeze had now sprung up, and was carrying straggling wreaths of cloud before it, the vanguard of more solid masses which were creeping up the sky from the distant west. Eastward the ocean now had lost its sapphire blueness and grown dull and grey, while far out toward the horizon it lowered beneath the oncome of the rising clouds, great cumulus masses lifting themselves in heaven and advancing against the breeze. They caught the rays of the opposing sun upon their breasts, and flashed them back, and sprinkled them on the sea, turning its lively blue to a white sickly grey.
"What splendid clouds!" cried Margaret. "But there will be a storm. When those clouds from the east meet the clouds in the west, we shall have thunder."
"I remember a sky the day I crossed the St Gothard, going down into the plains of Italy. Very fine it was----"
"Yes; I daresay it would be. The Old World must be a very superior place to this poor continent of ours. Even the sun and moon must shine better over there, by all accounts. The wonder is, how any of you travelled folks ever cared to come here at all. But say! there is quite a breeze coming down the bay; where can that sail-boat we were watching have gone? I cannot make out a sail anywhere. Is it the dazzle from the water that conceals it, do you think? Or can it be hid behind one of the islands, I wonder?"
"I see something white flapping behind that promontory down there, where the channel narrows between this island and the next. There it falls! They have taken it down. The men must be landing."
"Where? Ah! let us run down and see."
Peter would have liked to bite his tongue. Found guilty of that offence unpardonable in trans-Atlantic eyes, of praising the Old World at the expense of the New, he had thought to make his peace by discovering for his companion the object for which her eyes were searching the prospect; and he had done it with a vengeance. Not only was the offence forgotten, but himself seemed likely to be forgotten or overlooked as well. To think that he could be gauche enough to conduct his fair one into the arms of the very rival who had aroused his suspicion that morning! He had forgotten since then; things had gone so smoothly and pleasantly. What an awakening! "Duffer!" he muttered below his breath, and felt humbled indeed. But he made one poor struggle with destiny ere he yielded. He pulled out his watch, and asked his companion with a start if she had any idea what was the hour.
"The tide is turning, you must remember," he added. "We shall hear the whistle within fifteen minutes, and the steamer cannot wait. The skipper says she will be grounded by the ebb if we are not off by four. And a storm is coming on. I declare I hear distant thunder already. How dim the light is getting, too! It will take all we can do to be back in time. We have only twenty minutes."
"Your watch must be fast," and Margaret pulled out her own. "Ten minutes past three I make it, and I know mine is fast. See the groups scattered all over the island! No one has thought of turning yet. There is Judge Petty with his hammer pounding specimens out of yon cliff. Yonder is my sister with somebody picking flowers for her. Nobody thinks of gathering me a bouquet, ever. There is a party down there in the hollow, and I can distinguish Lettice Deane's voice quite plainly; and far over are two people standing on the edge of a cliff showing like silhouettes against the open sea. Uncle Joseph is one of them. No one is thinking of turning back."
"But, Miss Naylor, the storm will be on directly. Observe how dim it grows. You will get drenched with rain."
"I don't think it will rain till evening."
"Indeed it will. See how the clouds are coming up! Hear to the rumbling thunder!"
"I am not afraid. But if you think otherwise, I should not like to spoil your pleasure with the prospect of a wetting. Good-bye. You can tell them to expect me shortly." And she skipped away.
There was nothing for Peter but to follow, little as he could expect his presence to be welcome when they should come on that rival at the bottom of the hill. He hated the fellow, of course, and wished him "far enough," but he could not help feeling curious to see him. Yet he followed without alacrity. For the sake of argument, he had spoken of the light as growing dim; now he felt it to be so indeed. The warmth and brightness had gone out of the day for him, and it was become a common thing. Not that he would have said so. The poet's trick of drawing voices from inanimate nature to express or sympathise with his momentary emotions was none of his. He was matter-of-fact and common-sensical to a degree, if at the same time lucid-minded and intelligent: but still he was human like the rest of us; and for that matter so is the poet, "fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases." If he were not, what would his utterances be worth? His gift is utterance, but the thing he utters must be within the possibility of all to feel. And Peter felt, though the influence had stolen on him unawares. He had been in Margaret's company through successive hours, and she was a flower too fresh and sweet for any insect to have fluttered round so long without becoming intoxicated somewhat with the fragrance.
At the bottom of the hill, behind an intervening rock, they came upon a sandy beach, the extremity of a bar which runs across to the nearest island, connecting the two at low water, and forming the only landing-place other than that of which the steamer had possession. The boatmen were securing their craft as the two came in view. One of them with a shout sprang forward and bounded up the steep to meet them. He seized both Margaret's hands and shook them rapturously; then, remembering that she had a companion, to be accepted as a necessary evil, he turned round to Peter, raised his hat, and ceremoniously wished him good-day.
Peter returned the salute, and looked curiously in the other's face to divine what manner of man this favoured one might be, if haply he might yet be dealt with, outmanœuvred, or supplanted, and recognised with astonishment that it was "that" young Blount who had spent a few days at Clam Beach. His feelings expressed themselves in a low, scarce audible whistle; and circumstances, looks, tones, details from the week before, so trivial that he had not been conscious of remembering them, sprang suddenly into knowledge and arranged themselves; as when a thread is dropped into a chemical solution, crystals gather from the fluid, and shape themselves with mathematical precision round the nucleus. The circumstances strung themselves in an induction amounting to demonstration, that Margaret Naylor had bestowed her regards, and that he had come too late into the field.
The young people were assiduously polite to Mr Peter. They did not wish that unkind rumours of their meeting should circulate in the hotel, and they would not request him to keep a secret for them--their feelings would not permit them to do that--so both endeavoured to conciliate his goodwill. They did what they could to include him in their conversation; but he was inattentive, answering at random or not at all. The sudden revelation had confused him like a blow, and his thoughts kept wandering back to the details on which his induction was based, trying them and endeavouring to shake their consistency, wondering that he had not read the truth before, and pitying himself in what now seemed his disappointment.
His answers were made at random, but they did not observe it. They were feeding their eyes upon each other's faces, after a three days' separation, and they had no thought for anything but the delight of being together. How good it was! They babbled, scarcely knowing what they spoke of, and any observation which Peter chose to interject was perfectly good as conversation in their eyes, sitting there together on the shore, touching one another, looking shyly in each other's eyes, hearing each other's voices, and being happy. Peter lounged beside them on the ground, twisting his awkward limbs into uncouth knots, and feeling dull and flattened out, defeated and humbled, though nobody had done anything to him whatever.
And time and tide went on their wonted course, but no one of the three took notice of their passing.