A
boat came back from a journey. It had been to a far-off land. All the sailors jumped ashore, only too glad to run about again, but they tied up the boat to a long arm of rock, and left it there while they were gone.
The tide was very low and the sky was dull; there was just enough water to lap against the sides of the boat, and make it rock up and down. The boat fretted like a petulant child, and pulled at the rope as a dog pulls against its chain, but it could not get away, for all that.
"How dull it is here!" cried the little white boat; "they have all gone on shore and are merry. They don't consider my feelings, left here for the day all alone. And oh, what an ugly place this is!" and it looked right and left.
The sky was grey, the tide was very low; the boat was lashed to a long piece of rock that ran out like an arm into the sea. At each side of the rock a mass of seaweed clung—limp and brown.
"Of all the ugly things I ever saw," exclaimed the boat, "that seaweed is the worst. Think of the places I have been anchored in before—of the lovely tropical flowers that grew at the water's edge."
"You do not know who we are," cried the seaweeds; "we are young fairy sisters, who dance every night. This beach is the floor of our ball-room, and we dance, and are decked with jewels. We dance and are gay in the evening; in the daytime we lie still and rest."
"I do not believe you," said the boat; "you are ugly, and brown, and old. And this place is the dullest I have seen all my life."
So the boat sulked, and was unhappy all day. But when the evening arrived the sailors came down to the shore, and undid the boat, and rowed away.
And the boat looked back, and it was sunset, and a change had passed over the place. The sky was pink and golden, the waves were bathed in light; the sea was as transparent as a sapphire, and you looked through the sapphire roof and saw a golden floor.
Sure enough that was the floor of the dancing-room, and the tide had crept up the sides of the rock, and all the little seaweeds looked yellow and golden, and danced up and down in the arms of the waves.