Rousing himself from his momentary reverie, he put his hand into the water: it was as warm as milk; slowly flowing in a thin wave over the large extent of marsh heated by the sun, it had become thus warm.
“How different the water is here from what it is at the island, where it comes right in from sea, cold enough to make your teeth chatter to go into it. It’s too good a chance to lose.”
Over went the anchor, and off went Charlie’s clothes. After swimming till he was tired, he reluctantly turned the bow of his boat homeward: the wind might die; and he was afraid to lose the aid of the tide.
He was so embayed with lands and forests, that his progress was at first slow, the ebb tide not having begun to run; but as the bay widened, the tide strengthened, the wind increased, and was, withal, more favorable than in running up; the Wings of the Morning began to justify her high-sounding appellation, and with a wake scarce larger than the mackerel, after which she was modelled, left point after point rapidly astern.
“What a racer you are, old boat!” said Charlie, slapping his hand affectionately on the gunwale.
The misery and hardships of Charlie’s early life had produced a precocity beyond his years: constantly thrown upon his own resources, a boy in age, he was yet a man in thought and action. As his eye wandered over the vast area of dense forest, broken only here and there by a clearing, where there were so few occupants for so much land, he contrasted it with the crowded acres of his native country.
“What a country this is!” said he; “land and work for all. I’ll have my little spot, and perhaps some one to make it a home for me.”
Charlie had now arrived at a point where, if he sought the most direct route for home, he must keep “away” and stretch off seaward; he was some three miles above Uncle Isaac’s point.
Clearings now became more frequent; framed and log houses alternated with each other, as the means of the settlers were more or less limited. The shore line, however, was far less picturesque and wild: it was regular and flat, with few indentations, except some little nooks where those settlers whose clearings abutted on the shore hauled up their log canoes. He debated with himself whether he should keep “away,” and run for home, or run the shore down till he came to where he was acquainted.
He did not like to leave this large portion of the shore unexplored. He hove the boat to, and standing on the head-board, looked around: he perceived that the formation of the land changed very much,—farther along being broken into hills and valleys,—and that the shore was rugged and bold. The vision here was limited by a long, heavily-wooded point, of singular shape; and no farther view of the coast could be obtained without running off, so as to look by it.