Lost in the Fog

by James De Mille

His path now became a difficult one. It was necessary to keep away from the edge of the cliff, but still not to go out of sight of it. The trees were principally spruce and fir, but there were also birch and maple. He also noticed mountain ash and willow. Beneath him all the ground was covered with soft moss, in which he sank to his ankles, while on every side were luxuriant ferns and evergreen trailers. Tom recognized all these with great satisfaction, for they showed him the means of furnishing for himself a soft couch, that might be envied by many a man in better circumstances. Progress soon grew more difficult, for there were numerous mounds, and dense underbrush, through which he could only force his way by extreme effort. Windfalls also lay around in all directions, and no sooner would he have fairly surmounted one of them, than another would appear. Thus his progress was exceedingly slow and laborious.

After about a half an hour of strenuous exertion, Tom found himself in the midst of an almost impassable jungle of tangled, stunted fir trees. He tried to avoid these by making a detour, but found that they extended so far that he could only pass them by going along close to the edge of the cliff. This last path he chose, and clinging to the branches, he passed for more than a hundred yards along the crest of a frightful precipice, where far down there yawned an abyss, at whose bottom was the sea; while abreast of him in the air there floated great flocks of gulls, uttering their hoarse yells, and fluttering fiercely about, as though trying to drive back this intruder upon their domains. Once or twice Tom was compelled to stop, and turn away his face from the abyss, and thrust himself in among the trees; but each time he regained his courage, after a little rest, and went on as before.

At length he passed the thick spruce underbrush, and found the woods less dense. He could now work his way among them without being compelled to go so close to the edge of the cliff; and the dizzy height and the shrieks of the gulls no longer disturbed his senses. The trees here were not so high as those at the other end of the island, but were of much smaller size, and seemed stunted. There were no maples or other forest trees, but only scraggy fir, that seemed too exposed to the winds from the sea to have much health or verdure. The underbrush was wanting to a great extent, but moss was here in large quantities, and thick clusters of alder bushes. Wild shrubs also—such as raspberries and blueberries—were frequently met with; while ledges of weather-beaten rock jutted out from amid thick coverings of moss.

Walking here was not at all difficult, and he went on without any interruption, until, at last, he found any farther progress barred by a precipice. He was at the lower or western end of the island.

He looked down, and found beneath him a great precipice, while rocks jutted out from the sea, and ledges projected beyond. The gulls were present here, as elsewhere, in great flocks, and still kept up their noisy screams.

Tom looked out over the sea, and saw its waters spread far away till it was lost in the horizon. On the line of that horizon he saw a faint gray cloud, that looked like a fog bank. It had, to his eyes, a certain gloomy menace, and seemed to say to him that he had not seen the last of it yet. On the left of the broad sea, the Nova Scotia Coast ran along till it was lost in the distance; and on the right was the long line of the New Brunswick shore, both of which had now that dark hue of olive green which he had noticed on the land opposite before he had started.

Suddenly, while he was looking, his eyes caught sight of something white that glistened brightly from the blue water. It was about midway between the two coasts, and he knew it at once to be some sailing vessel. He could not make out more than one sail, and that showed that the vessel was either coming up the bay or going down; for if it had been crossing, she would, of course, have lain broadside on to his present locality, and would have thus displayed two sails to his view. The sight of this vessel agitated him exceedingly; and the question about her probable course now entered his mind, and drove away all other thoughts. Whether that vessel were going up or down became of exclusive importance to him now, if she were coming up, she might approach him, and hear his hail, or catch sight of his signals. Suddenly he reflected that he had no way of attracting attention, and a wild desire of running back and setting up the longest pole or board that he could find came into his mind; but such was the intensity of his curiosity, and the weight of his suspense, that he could not move from the spot where he was until he had satisfied himself as to the vessel's course.

He sat down not far from the edge of the precipice, and, leaning forward with his hands supporting his chin, he strained his eyes over the intervening distance, as he tried to make out in which way the vessel was going. It seemed fully ten miles away, and her hull was not visible. It was only the white of her sails that he saw; and as the sunlight played on these from time to time, or fell off from the angle of reflection, the vessel was alternately more or less visible, and thus seemed by turns to draw nearer and depart farther from his sight.

Thus for a long time he sat, alternately hoping and desponding, at every play of those sails in the sunlight. The calm of the water showed him that, even if the vessel were coming up, he could not expect any very rapid progress. There was now no wind, and the surface of the water was perfectly unruffled. Besides, he knew that the tide was falling rapidly. How, then, could he expect that the vessel could come any nearer, even if she were trying to? Thoughts like these at last made him only anxious to keep the vessel in sight. If her destination lay up the bay, she would probably anchor; if it lay down the bay, she would drift with the tide. He thought, then, that if she only would remain in sight, it would be a sufficient proof of her course.

Thus he sat, watching and waiting, with all his soul intent upon those flashing sails, and all his thoughts taken up with the question as to the course of that solitary bark. It seemed a long time to him, in his suspense; but suspense always makes time seem long. At last, however, even though he hoped so persistently for the best, his hope began to die within him. Fainter and fainter grew those sails; at intervals rarer and rarer did their flash come to his eyes, until at length the sight of them was lost altogether, and nothing met his eyes but the gloomy gray of the fog cloud on the far horizon.