“Ah, well,” said he, “I’ll not trouble you, then. I would not have you lie awake. I’ll go. Good-night. God bless you, lad!”
I wish I had not driven him away....
VII
TWIN ISLANDS
In all this time I have said little enough of Twist Tickle, never a word (I think) of Twin Islands, between whose ragged shores the sheltering tickle winds; and by your favor I come now gratefully to the task. ’Tis a fishing outport: a place of rock and sea and windy sky––no more than that––but much loved by the twelvescore simple souls of us, who asked for share of all the earth but salt-water and a harbor (with the winds blowing) to thrive sufficient to ourselves and to the world beyond. Had my uncle sought a secret place to foster the child that was I––which yet might yield fair wage for toil––his quest fortuitously ended when the Shining Light ran dripping out of the gale and came to anchor in the quiet water of the tickle. But more like ’twas something finer that moved him: in that upheaval of his life, it may be, ’twas a wistful turning of the heart to the paths and familiar waters of the shore where he lived as a lad. Had the Shining Light sailed near or far and passed the harbor by, the changed fortunes of––but there was no sailing by, nor could have been, for the great wind 70 upon whose wings she came was passionate, too, and fateful.
If ’tis a delight to love, whatever may come of it (as some hold), I found delight upon the grim hills of Twin Islands....
They lie hard by the coast, but are yet remote: Ship’s Run divides them from the long blue line of main-land which lifts its barren hills in misty distance from our kinder place. ’Tis a lusty stretch of gray water, sullen, melancholy, easily troubled by the winds, which delight, it seems, sweeping from the drear seas of the north, to stir its rage. In evil weather ’tis wide as space; when a nor’easter lifts the white dust of the sea, clouding Blow-me-down-Billy of the main-land in a swirl of mist and spume, there is no departure; nor is there any crossing (mark you) when in the spring of the year a southerly gale urges the ice to sea. We of Twin Islands were cut off by Ship’s Run from all the stirring and inquisitive world.