The surf at this point, even in pleasant weather, sounded a constant roar, and in times of storm it increased to a deafening thunder that appalled the ear and made the heart tremble before the sea in its savage ferocity. Looking off to the right, perhaps the greater part of a mile distant, the harbor discovered itself, blue, bluer than the sky. A few vessels that had grown mysteriously upon the empty horizon, and come in over the vast waste of waters, were idly lying at anchor, each one biding her time to spread her sails in the breeze and recede upon her lonely course, going, as she had come, like some spirit of solitude, dropping down silently beyond the remote sea-reaches. There the Nereid swung herself gently over the long ground-swell, patiently awaiting the coming night when again to take up her watery track that would carry her over the great Atlantic to other lands and far-off harbors. Not a trimmer ship sailed the high seas.
The sun had traveled almost down the western slope, and it lit up the mighty ocean with a splendor that burned in lances of flame along the waves, and floated in myriad rainbows over the surf. The pomp of the departing day passed across the boundless waters, a magnificent pageantry. As the sun went down, the sky became a scarlet canopy. The flying spray took up the color and spread out a thousand streamers to the wind. Long, gold-green lanes of sea ran out to where the distant mists let down their gorgeous drapery. The tireless gulls, shaking the red light from their wings, sailed and sailed and dipped and sailed again. A few fishing smacks loitered in the orange haze, and, leagues away, a single sloop in the humid north stood, like some wan water-wraith, with a garland of foam about its feet. Eastward, above the hills, the waiting moon hung her helmet, paler than pearl, and the land, transfigured by the evening light, looked on while the sea in its play flashed up a hundred hues.
The widow Aber had lived there on the cliff and seen the tides ebb and flow for more now than the quarter of a century. She was not a young girl when, twenty-six years back, poor Jacob Aber had married her. It was a sudden fancy on his part and a great surprise to the place, for Jacob was well on towards fifty, and many a girl had set her cap to catch the handsome sailor in vain. But he never rued his bargain. He was not a rich man, because he had always been a generous man, and he was content with enough merely to bring him in a modest living. When he married he took what little he had and built this cottage, built it of brick good and strong, where he could feel the salt wind blow, right in the face of the sea—the sea that, until he met Miriam Drew with her soft gray eyes, he had loved better than every thing else in all the wide world.
They were happy and prosperous for four long years. First a son, then a daughter had come to brighten their home, and it was on just such an evening as this that Miriam, holding her infant child in her arms, told Jacob good-bye two-and-twenty years ago.
It would be his last cruise, he said. The vessel was his own, and in twelve months, or less, he would come back rich enough to stay always, and if the tears were in his voice he choked them down bravely, saying again it was but for a little while he should be gone, and she must cheer up for the long and happy years that would come after.
Then she suddenly laid down her child and with a smothered sob put up her arms about his neck. It was the first time she had fairly given way, and she clung to him trembling violently, but uttering not one word. He smoothed her brow gently, with a caressing touch, for her sake keeping his own grief crushed within his heart, and said,—
“Miriam don’t you remember once saying you could always tell a sailor by the dreamy far-off look in his eyes, an expression that came only to those that lived upon the sea and watched its wide, wide fields? And don’t you remember sometimes when I was sitting quietly at home you would come up suddenly and ask me what it was I saw miles and miles away, over the summer water, in that distant sunny land? Well, do not cry so, for even when my ship has vanished from your sight, when on every side there is no trace of shore, I can stand upon her deck and look beyond the far horizon at our peaceful, happy home. And when at evening, with your eyes upon the sea, you sit and hold the children in your lap, remember I will be watching you from across its glittering line. There, that is right! You are a good, brave girl! It is but for a little while. I can look beyond this parting—I can see your waiting face turn radiant as my boat sails safely back!”
Then, when he had kissed her and the little ones, and turned and kissed them again, there was a faint smile struggling through her tears. So, striving to keep down her grief, she parted without saying one word of the terrible dread that lay upon her heart.
And two-and-twenty years ago he had sailed away.
Many days, many nights, many weeks, many months, Miriam had watched the sea with wistful eyes. For his sake she had very nearly grown to love it, and the color came again to her cheeks as the time went by and the year was almost up, when it would give back forever the one she valued more than life. In those days she scanned the water-line, and waited patiently, and went about the house singing. She chattered to her baby-daughter all how its father was sailing home, until it laughed and cooed in wild delight. Every morning she dressed little Tommy in his best, and tied about his waist the beautiful sea-green sash that Jacob had brought her from the distant Indies; and in the queer frosted vases on the mantel, that had come from some foreign port, she kept a fresh bouquet of sweet wild flowers.