CHAPTER IV
AMID BLEAK SURROUNDINGS
Pemoquod lighthouse is on a point projecting into the ocean. Standing in the lantern of the lighthouse and looking toward the east, one beholds the ocean with nothing between him and Europe except an inconsiderable island or two; looking toward the west, one beholds John's Bay. On the ocean side of the Point is a long line of broken cliffs ranged for a certain distance in tiers, like the seats in a vast amphitheatre. Then abruptly this formation ends and the cliffs tower up into separate crags,—monsters that forever contemplate the sea with rage. There between the water and the rocks is a constant contest. The rocks are like giant animals; the sinuous waves, leaping and roaring, like unearthly reptiles. Between the rock-beasts and the wave-reptiles is unabating feud. After each conflict the waves seem to hiss with fury, the rocks to drip with gore by reason of the masses of red seaweed with which they are covered over.
It is curious to rise from a seat in the amphitheatre where you have been lulled by the light touch of the wind and the soft lapping of the waves, to contemplate two or three rods beyond this scene of mighty wrath. It is more curious still to stroll through expanses of sedgegrass to the other side of the Point and behold the bay. A quiet little bay it seems, with its diversified edge of sandy beach and tumble of small rocks, with its lobstermen's sheds clinging to the shore and further inland the houses. From the bay only the blank walls of these houses can be seen, for the women, with reason, regard the sea as an enemy to be ignored during peaceful indoor hours, and hardly a window of the modest dwellings looks toward the water.
During the summer and part of the winter, the bay is sprinkled far and wide with the sails of fishing dories. Into this pocket of the sea, always conveniently open, nature brings food for man in the form of marine creatures,—lobsters, crabs, and a clutter of fish. The bay, with its air of mild domesticity, is man's domain; the sea outside, God's alone.
Never the less the region in winter is harsh and unfavoured. The wind pipes down the chimneys and clamours on the crags and fairly howls in giant witch-fashion on the ocean. The people go about their duties with shoulders shrugged up, with purple noses and freezing toes. In the houses, they can scarcely hear one another speak on the windiest days, and conversation is impossible anywhere near the Point; this life fosters in them a solitariness of the soul.
With motley garments, sometimes quilts and shawls, strapped and buckled around them, the few who pursue lobster-fishing as a vocation fuss around their pounds or, out on the bay, haul their pots and swear. Their oaths mingle with the gale and the dashing waters and even freeze in mid air to come to land later and form icicles. At least, this was Rachel's fancy, and when she saw the bits of ice at the window ledges, she reached forth an arm and plucking them, dissolved them in her soft warm mouth, as if she would dissolve at the same time her grandfather's probable wrath. This wrath, being so justified, however, had something righteous in it, which Rachel was not slow to admit. Certainly it was not right that a man's living should be so hard a thing to win, and what was there for it but to exorcise these demons of wind and tide with language harsh enough to fit the occasion?
David Beckett, despite his gentleness, was a prodigious oath maker; indeed, some of his oaths were so picturesque as to have come into general circulation, a fact which afforded Rachel not a little satisfaction. To be able to invent such oaths, she felt instinctively, required an imagination of no uncertain order.
In winter her cheeks grew ruddy from the wind, tears caused by the cold sometimes stood in her eyes and the skin on the backs of her hands cracked until the knuckles bled. But she was very hardy and healthy. She had a fondness for mingling the impressions of form and colour and scent which bespoke a very sensuous temperament.
The old man's delight in her was boundless. Whenever she approached him a wonderful tenderness illuminated his face; his blue eyes sparkled and a set of wrinkles, entirely new, shot out from their corners like rockets. On her part the child returned his feeling with a depth of affection, startling and almost tragic in one so young. She seemed to give the old man something of the vigour of childhood, while into her passed a little of the seriousness of age.
They were constant companions. Sometimes in order not to be separated from her, David took her out in the dory. There, while the boat rose and sank and rose again, and Zarah Patch's nephew phlegmatically set or hauled the pots, the old man sought to answer her numerous questions, suggested for the most part, by her chance study of the family Bible.