[“Would you believe it, there were two boys that put to sea right in the face of it?”]
THE ISLAND OF APPLEDORE
CHAPTER I
PEERING EYES
Two big willow-trees guarded the entrance to Captain Saulsby’s place, willow-trees with such huge, rough trunks and such thick, gnarled branches that they might almost have been oaks. For fifty years they had bent and rocked before the furious winter storms, had bowed their heads to the showers of salt spray and had trembled under the shock of the thundering surf that often broke on the rocks below them. They had seen tempests and wrecks and thrilling rescues upon that stretch of sea across which they had looked so long, they had battled with winds that had been too much for more than one of the ships flying for shelter to the harbour of Appledore. It was no wonder that they showed the stress of time.
Billy Wentworth stood hesitating at the gap in the wall, looked up at the swaying, pale-green branches above him and down at the green and white surf rolling in on the shore below, sniffed at the keen salt breeze and tried to tell himself that he did not like it. He was so thoroughly angry and discontented that he could see nothing pleasant in the sunny stretch of open water, the glitter of the tossing whitecaps and the line of breaking waves about the lighthouse a mile away.
“To spend the summer on a little two-by-four island with an old-maid aunt,” was his bitter reflection, “to have nothing on earth to do and no one to do it with—it’s just too hard. I won’t stand it long.”
He stumped the toes of his boots in the dust of the narrow path with as much obstinate sulkiness as though he were six years old instead of sixteen. Perhaps it made him even more angry than he was before, to discover that, in spite of what he had been thinking, he had stood staring for some minutes at the big, curling waves as they rolled in, receded, and came foaming up among the rocks again. Indeed he had been watching with such fascination that he could scarcely tear his eyes away. He had seen the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in his life only a few hours ago, and he was still trying, with some success, to convince himself that he did not like it and never would.
He strolled aimlessly along the path which he had been told led to “Cap’n Saulsby’s little house down on the point.” There was a vague desire in his mind to look upon a live sea-captain since he had never seen one before. The feeling was not strong, only just enough to bring him along the shore road and through the willow-guarded gateway. He had no thought, as he walked slowly between the two big trees, that they marked the door to a new phase in his life, that they were to prove the entrance to adventures and perils of an unknown kind. He merely trudged along, frowning at the sun that shone too brightly on the dazzling blue water and at the wind that blew too sharply in his face.