With a familiarity of old knowledge, Falkner descended the winding streets to the water front. In this lower part of the town the dingy old houses had an air of ancient grandeur, and tall elms drooped dust-laden branches over the street.
"Dear old place!" he exclaimed, memories reviving of his boyhood cruises. "It was in ninety-one when I was here last. I never expected to put in here again."
The streets were empty, a noon stillness brooding in them. Margaret slipped her hand into his, the joy, the freedom, the sense of the open road sweeping over her afresh. The world was already fading behind them…. They came out upon the wharves, and threaded their way among the sagging gray buildings that smelt of salt fish, until the harbor water lapped at the piles beneath their feet.
"There's the Swallow!" Falkner cried, pointing into the stream.
They were soon aboard, and Margaret curled herself in the cockpit on a rug, while Falkner ran up the sails. Little waves were dancing across the harbor. Taking the tiller, he crouched beside her and whispered:—
"Now we are off—to the islands of the blest!"
It was all so in her dream, even to the white sail slowly filling before the breeze. They glided past hulking schooners lying idle with grimy sails all set, and from their decks above black-faced men looked down curiously at the white figure in the cockpit of the little sloop. Behind the schooners the wharves and the red brick warehouses, the elms and the white houses on the hill, the tall spires—all drew backwards into the westering sun. A low gray lighthouse came into sight; the Swallow dipped and rose; and the breeze freshened as they entered the lower bay. A great ship was slowly rounding the point, bound outward, too, laboring into the deep—for what? For some noisy port beneath the horizon. But for her the port of starlight and a man's arm,—the world was wonderful, this day! Falkner raised his hand and pointed far away to the eastward where a shadow lay like a finger on the sea,
"Our harbor is over there!"
Away to the east, to the broad open ocean, it was fitting they should speed,—they who had shaken themselves loose from the land….
She held the tiller when he rummaged below for a chart, and while she was there alone, a pot-bellied pleasure steamer, swarming with people, rolled past, shaking the Swallow with its wake. The people on the decks spied the sail-boat, raised glasses, looked down, and had their say. 'A bit of the chattering world that is left,' thought Margaret, 'like all the rest.' And something joyful within cried: 'Not to-day! To-day I defy you. To-day I have escaped—I am a rebel. You can do nothing with me. Oh, to-day I am happy, happy, happy,—can you say that?' Falkner came up from the cabin with his chart, and shading his eyes, swept the sea for the landmarks of their course. And the Swallow sped on out of the noisy to-day through a path of gold and blue to the radiant to-morrow.