The sea, breaking upon the Rock o’ Wishes, and the wind, roaring past, confused old Tom Lull.
“What say?” he shouted.
“Nothin’ like it,” said Jonathan Stock.
They had come in from the sea with empty punts, and they were now pulling up the harbor, side by side, toward the stage-heads, which were lost in the misty dusk. Old Tom had hung in the lee of the Rock o’ Wishes until Jonathan Stock came flying over the tickle breaker in a cloud of spray. The wind had been in the east beyond the experience of eighty years; it was in his aged mind to exchange opinions upon the marvel.
“Me neither,” said he.
They were drawing near Herring Point, within the harbor, where the noise of wind and sea, in an easterly gale, diminishes.
“I ’low I never seed nothin’ like it,” said Jonathan Stock.
“Me neither, Skipper Jonathan.”
“Never seed nothin’ like it.”
They pulled on in silence—until the froth of Puppy Rock was well astern.