Chapter IV: Part 4

always bring back to my mind the memory of those delicate, spangled draperies, more beautiful than any mortal loom could weave, that curtained the rocks at White Island and “shook their threaded tears” in every wind.

Sometimes we saw the bats wheel through the summer dusk, and in profoundly silent evenings heard, from the lighthouse top, their shrill, small cries, their voices sharper and finer than needle-points. One day I found one clinging to the under side of a shutter,--a soft, dun-colored, downy lump. I took it in my hand, and in an instant it changed to a hideous little demon, and its fierce white teeth met in the palm of my hand. So much fury in so small a beast I never encountered, and I was glad enough to give him his liberty without more ado.

A kind of sandhopper about an inch long, that infested the beach, was a great source of amusement. Lifting the stranded sea-weed that marked the high-water line, we always startled a gray and brown cloud of them from beneath it, leaping away, like tiny kangaroos, out of sight. In storms these were driven into the house, forcing their way through every crack and cranny till they strewed the floors,--the sea so encircled us! Dying immediately upon leaving the water from which they fled, they turned from a clear brown, or what Mr. Kingsley would call a “pellucid gray,” to bright brick-color, like a boiled lobster, and many a time I have swept them up in ruddy heaps; they looked like bits of coral.

I remember in the spring kneeling on the ground to seek the first blades of grass that pricked through the soil, and bringing them into the house to study and wonder over. Better than a shop full of toys they were to me! Whence came their color? How did they draw their sweet, refreshing tint from the brown earth, or the limpid air, or the white light? Chemistry was not at hand to answer me, and all her wisdom would not have dispelled the wonder. Later the little scarlet pimpernel charmed me. It seemed more than a flower; it was like a human thing. I knew it by its homely name of poor-man’s weather-glass. It was so much wiser than I, for, when the sky was yet without a cloud, softly it clasped its small red petals together, folding its golden heart in safety from the shower that was sure to come! How could it know so much? Here is a question science cannot answer. The pimpernel grows everywhere about the islands, in every cleft and cranny where a suspicion of sustenance for its slender root can lodge; and it is one of the most exquisite of flowers, so rich in color, so quaint and dainty in its method of growth. I never knew its silent warning fail. I wondered much how every flower knew what to do and to be; why the morning-glory didn’t forget sometimes, and bear a cluster of elder-bloom, or the elder hang out pennons of gold and purple like the iris, or the golden-rod suddenly blaze out a scarlet plume, the color of the pimpernel, was a mystery to my childish thought. And why did the sweet wild primrose wait till after sunset to unclose its pale yellow buds; why did it unlock its treasure of rich perfume to the night alone? Few flowers bloomed for me upon the lonesome rock; but I made the most of all I had, and neither knew of nor desired more. Ah, how beautiful they were! Tiny stars of crimson sorrel threaded on their long brown stems; the blackberry blossoms in bridal white; the surprise of the blue-eyed grass; the crowfoot flowers, like drops of yellow gold spilt about among the short grass and over the moss; the rich, blue-purple beach-pea, the sweet, spiked germander, and the homely, delightful yarrow that grows thickly on all the islands. Sometimes its broad clusters of dull white bloom are stained a lovely reddish-purple, as if with the light of sunset. I never saw it colored so elsewhere. Quantities of slender, wide-spreading mustard-bushes grew about the house; their delicate flowers were like fragrant golden clouds. Dandelions, buttercups, and clover were not denied to us; though we had no daisies nor violets nor wild roses, no asters, but gorgeous spikes of golden-rod, and wonderful wild morning-glories, whose long, pale, ivory buds I used to find in the twilight, glimmering among the dark leaves, waiting for the touch of dawn to unfold and become each an exquisite incarnate blush,--the perfect color of a South Sea shell. They ran wild, knotting and twisting about the rocks, and smothering the loose boulders in the gorges with lush green leaves and pink blossoms.

Many a summer morning have I crept out of the still house before any one was awake, and, wrapping myself closely from the chill wind of dawn, climbed to the top of the high cliff called the Head to watch the sunrise. Pale grew the lighthouse flame before the broadening day as, nestled in a crevice at the cliff’s edge, I watched the shadows draw away and morning break. Facing the east and south, with all the Atlantic before me, what happiness was mine as the deepening rose-color flushed the delicate cloudflocks that dappled the sky, where the gulls soared, rosy too, while the calm sea blushed beneath. Or perhaps it was a cloudless sunrise with a sky of orange-red, and the sea-line silver-blue against it, peaceful as heaven. Infinite variety of beauty always awaited me, and filled me with an absorbing, unreasoning joy such as makes the song-sparrow sing,--a sense of perfect bliss. Coming back in the sunshine, the morning-glories would lift up their faces, all awake, to my adoring gaze. Like countless rosy trumpets sometimes I thought they were, tossed everywhere about the rocks, turned up to the sky, or drooping toward the ground, or looking east, west, north, south, in silent loveliness. It seemed as if they had gathered the peace of the golden morning in their still depths even as my heart had gathered it.

In some of those matchless summer mornings when I went out to milk the little dun cow, it was hardly possible to go farther than the doorstep, for pure wonder, as I looked abroad at the sea lying still, like a vast, round mirror, the tide drawn away from the rich brown rocks, a sail or two asleep in the calm, not a sound abroad except a few bird voices; dew lying like jewel-dust sifted over everything,--diamond and ruby, sapphire, topaz, and amethyst, flashing out of the emerald deeps of the tufted grass or from the bending tops. Looking over to the mainland, I could dimly discern in the level sunshine the depths of glowing green woods faintly revealed in the distance, fold beyond fold of hill and valley thickly clothed with the summer’s splendor. But my handful of grass was more precious to me than miles of green fields, and I was led to consider every blade where there were so few. Not long ago I had watched them piercing the ground toward the light; now, how strong in their slender grace were these stems, how perfect the poise of the heavy heads that waved with such harmony of movement in the faintest breeze! And I noticed at mid-day when the dew was dry, where the tall, blossoming spears stood in graceful companies that, before they grew purple, brown, and ripe, when they began to blossom, they put out first a downy ring of pollen in tiny, yellow rays, held by an almost invisible thread, which stood out like an aureole from each slow-waving head,--a fairy-like effect. On Seavey’s Island (united to ours by a narrow beach covered at high tide with contending waves) grew one single root of fern, the only one within the circle of my little world. It was safe in a deep cleft, but I was in perpetual anxiety lest my little cow, going there daily to pasture, should leave her cropping of the grass and eat it up some day. Poor little cow! One night she did not come home to be milked as usual, and on going to seek her we found she had caught one foot in a crevice and twisted her hoof entirely off! That was a calamity; for we were forced to summon our neighbors and have her killed on the spot.

I had a scrap of garden, literally not more than a yard square, wherein grew only African marigolds, rich in color as barbaric gold. I knew nothing of John Keats at that time,--poor Keats, “who told Severn that he thought his intensest pleasure in life had been to watch the growth of flowers,”--but I am sure he never felt their beauty more devoutly than the little, half-savage being who knelt, like a fire-worshipper, to watch the unfolding of those golden disks. When, later, the “brave new world” of poets was opened to me, with what power those glowing lines of his went straight to my heart,

“Open afresh your rounds of starry folds,
Ye ardent marigolds!”

All flowers had for me such human interest, they were so dear and precious, I hardly liked to gather them, and when they were withered, I carried them all to one place and laid them tenderly together, and never liked to pass the spot where they were hidden.

Once or twice every year came the black, lumbering old “oil-schooner” that brought supplies for the lighthouse, and the inspector, who gravely examined everything, to see if all was in order. He left stacks of clear red and white glass chimneys for the lamps, and several doe-skins for polishing the great, silver-lined copper reflectors, large bundles of wicks, and various pairs of scissors for trimming them, heavy black casks of ill-perfumed whale-oil, and other things, which were all stowed in the round, dimly-lighted rooms of the tower. Very awe-struck, we children always crept into corners, and whispered and watched the intruders till they embarked in their ancient, clumsy vessel, and, hoisting their dark, weather-stained sails, bore slowly away again. About ten years ago that old white lighthouse was taken away, and a new, perpendicular brick tower built in its place. The lantern, with its fifteen lamps, ten golden and five red, gave place to Fresnel’s powerful single burner, or, rather, three burners in one, enclosed in its case of prisms. The old lighthouse was by far the most picturesque; but perhaps the new one is more effective, the light being, undoubtedly, more powerful.

Often, in pleasant days, the head of the family sailed away to visit the other islands, sometimes taking the children with him, oftener going alone, frequently not returning till after dark. The landing at White Island is so dangerous that the greatest care is requisite, if there is any sea running, to get ashore in safety. Two long and very solid timbers about three feet apart are laid from the boat-house to low-water mark, and between those timbers the boat’s bow must be accurately steered; if she goes to the right or the left, woe to her crew unless the sea is calm! Safely lodged in the slip, as it is called, she is drawn up into the boat-house by a capstan, and fastened securely. The lighthouse gave no ray to the dark rock below it; sending its beams far out to sea, it left us at its foot in greater darkness for its lofty light. So when the boat was out late, in soft, moonless summer nights, I used to light a lantern, and, going down to the water’s edge, take my station between the timbers of the slip, and, with the lantern at my feet, sit waiting in the darkness, quite content, knowing my little star was watched for, and that the safety of the boat depended in a great measure upon it. How sweet the summer wind blew, how softly plashed the water round me, how refreshing was the odor of the sparkling brine! High above, the lighthouse rays streamed out into the humid dark, and the cottage windows were ruddy from the glow within. I felt so much a part of the Lord’s universe, I was no more afraid of the dark than the waves or winds; but I was glad to hear at last the creaking of the mast and the rattling of the rowlocks as the boat approached; and, while yet she was far off, the lighthouse touched her one large sail into sight, so that I knew she was nearing me, and shouted, listening for the reply that came so blithely back to me over the water.

Unafraid, too, we watched the summer tempests, and listened to the deep, melodious thunder rolling away over the rain-calmed ocean. The lightning played over the iron rods that ran from the lighthouse-top down into the sea. Where it lay on the sharp ridgepole of the long, covered walk that spanned the gorge, the strange fire ran up the spikes that were set at equal distances, and burnt like pale flame from their tips. It was fine indeed from the lighthouse itself to watch the storm come rushing over the sea and ingulf us in our helplessness. How the rain weltered down over the great panes of plate glass,--floods of sweet, fresh water that poured off the rocks and mingled with the bitter brine. I wondered why the fresh floods never made the salt sea any sweeter. Those pale flames that we beheld burning from the spikes of the lightning-rod, I suppose were identical with the St. Elmo’s fire that I have since seen described as haunting the spars of ships in thunder-storms. And here I am reminded of a story told by some gentlemen visiting Appledore sixteen or eighteen years ago. They started from Portsmouth for the Shoals in a whaleboat, one evening in summer, with a native Star-Islander, Richard Randall by name, to manage the boat. They had sailed about half the distance, when they were surprised at seeing a large ball of fire, like a rising moon, rolling toward them over the sea from the south. They watched it eagerly as it bore down upon them, and, veering off, went east of them at some little distance, and then passed astern, and there, of course, they expected to lose sight of it; but while they were marvelling and speculating, it altered its course, and suddenly began to near them, coming back upon its track against the wind and steadily following in their wake. This was too much for the native Shoaler. He took off his jacket and turned it inside out to exorcise the fiend, and lo, the apparition most certainly disappeared! We heard the excited account of the strange gentlemen and witnessed the holy horror of the boatman on the occasion; but no one could imagine what had set the globe of fire rolling across the sea. Some one suggested that it might be an exhalation, a phosphorescent light, from the decaying body of some dead fish; but in that case it must have been taken in tow by some living finny creature, else how could it have sailed straight “into the teeth of the wind”? It was never satisfactorily accounted for, and must remain a mystery.

One autumn at White Island our little boat had been to Portsmouth for provisions, etc. With the spy-glass we watched her returning, beating against the head wind. The day was bright, but there had been a storm at sea, and the breakers rolled and roared about us. The process of “beating” is so tedious that, though the boat had started in the morning, the sun was sending long yellow light from the west before it reached the island. There was no cessation in those resistless billows that rolled from the Devil’s Rock upon the slip; but still the little craft sailed on, striving to reach the landing. The hand at the tiller was firm, but a huge wave swept suddenly in, swerving the boat to the left of the slip, and in a moment she was overturned and flung upon the rocks, and her only occupant tossed high upon the beach, safe except for a few bruises; but what a moment of terror it was for us all, who saw and could not save! All the freight was lost except a roll of iron wire and a barrel of walnuts. These were spread on the floor of an unoccupied eastern chamber in the cottage to dry. And they did dry; but before they were gathered up came a terrible storm from the southeast. It raved and tore at lighthouse and cottage; the sea broke into the windows of that eastern chamber where the walnuts lay, and washed them out till they came dancing down the stairs in briny foam! The sea broke the windows of the house several times during our stay at the lighthouse. Everything shook so violently from the concussion of the breakers, that dishes on the closet shelves fell to the floor, and one member of the family was at first always made sea-sick in storms, by the tremor and deafening confusion. One night when, from the southeast, the very soul of chaos seemed to have been let loose upon the world, the whole ponderous “walk” (the covered bridge that connected the house and lighthouse) was carried thundering down the gorge and dragged out into the raging sea.

It was a distressing situation for us,--cut off from the precious light that must be kept alive; for the breakers were tearing through the gorge so that no living thing could climb across. But the tide could not resist the mighty impulse that drew it down; it was forced to obey the still voice that bade it ebb; all swollen and raging and towering as it was, slowly and surely, at the appointed time, it sank away from our rock, so that, between the billows that still strove to clutch at the white, silent, golden-crowned tower, one could creep across, and scale the height, and wind up the machinery that kept the great clustered light revolving till the gray daylight broke to extinguish it.

I often wondered how it was possible for the sea-birds to live through such storms as these. But, when one could see at all, the gulls were always soaring, in the wildest tumult, and the stormy petrels half flying, half swimming in the hollows of the waves.

Would it were possible to describe the beauty of the calm that followed such tempests! The long lines of silver foam that streaked the tranquil blue, the “tender-curving lines of creamy spray” along the shore, the clear-washed sky, the peaceful yellow light, the mellow breakers murmuring slumberously!

Of all the storms our childish eyes watched with delighted awe, one thunder-storm remains fixed in my memory. Late in an August afternoon it rolled its awful clouds to the zenith, and, after the tumult had subsided, spread its lightened vapors in an under-roof of gray over all the sky. Presently this solemn gray lid was lifted at its western edge, and an insufferable splendor streamed across the world from the sinking sun. The whole heaven was in a blaze of scarlet, across which sprang a rainbow unbroken to the topmost clouds, “with its seven perfect colors chorded in a triumph” against the flaming background; the sea answered the sky’s rich blush, and the gray rocks lay drowned in melancholy purple. I hid my face from the glory,--it was too much to bear. Ever I longed to _speak_ these things that made life so sweet, to speak the wind, the cloud, the bird’s flight, the sea’s murmur. A vain longing! I might as well have sighed for the mighty pencil of Michael Angelo to wield in my impotent child’s hand. Better to “hush and bless one’s self with silence”; but ever the wish grew. Facing the July sunsets, deep red and golden through and through, or watching the summer northern lights,--battalions of brilliant streamers advancing and retreating, shooting upward to the zenith, and glowing like fiery veils before the stars; or when the fog-bow spanned the silver mist of morning, or the earth and sea lay shimmering in a golden haze of noon; in storm or calm, by day or night, the manifold aspects of Nature held me and swayed all my thoughts until it was impossible to be silent any longer, and I was fain to mingle my voice with her myriad voices, only aspiring to be in accord with the Infinite harmony, however feeble and broken the notes might be.

* * * * *

It has been my good fortune to witness but few wrecks at the Shoals. The disasters of which we hear faintly from the past were many and dreadful; but since the building of the lighthouse on White Island, and also on Boone Island (which seems like a neighbor, though fifteen miles distant), the danger of the place is much lessened. A resident of Star Island told me of a wreck which took place forty-seven years ago, during a heavy storm from the eastward. It blew so that all the doors in the house opened as fast as they shut them, and in the night a vessel drove against “Hog Island Head,” which fronts the village on Star. She went to pieces utterly. In the morning the islanders perceived the beach at Londoners heaped with some kind of drift; they could not make out what it was, but, as soon as the sea subsided, went to examine and found a mass of oranges and picture-frames, with which the vessel had been freighted. Not a soul was saved. “She struck with such force that she drove a large spike out of her forefoot” into a crevice in the rock, which was plainly to be seen till a few years ago. My informant also told me that she remembered the wreck of the Sagunto, in 1813; that the beaches were strewn with “almond-nuts” long after; and that she picked up curiously embroidered vests and “work-bags” in all directions along the shores.

During a storm in 1839, while living at White Island, we were startled by the heavy booming of guns through the roar of the tempest,--a sound that drew nearer and nearer, till at last, through a sudden break in the mist and spray, we saw the heavily rolling hull of a large vessel driving by, to her sure destruction, toward the coast. It was as if the wind had torn the vapor apart on purpose to show us this piteous sight; and I well remember the hand on my shoulder which held me firmly, shuddering child that I was, and forced me to look in spite of myself. What a day of pain it was! how dreadful the sound of those signal-guns, and how much more dreadful the certainty, when they ceased, that all was over! We learned afterward that it was the brig Pocahontas, homeward bound from Spain, and that the vessel and all her crew were lost. In later years a few coasters and fishermen have gone ashore at the islands, generally upon the hidden ledges at Duck. Many of these have been loaded with lime,--a most perilous freight; for as soon as the water touches it there is a double danger; and between fire and water there is little chance of escape.

I wish I could recall the graphic language of a Star Islander who described to me a wreck of this kind. The islanders saw at sunrise, one bitter winter day, a schooner ashore among the dreadful ledges at Duck Island, and, though the wind blew half a gale, they took their boats and ran down toward her before the northwester. Smoke and steam and spray and flame were rising from her and about her when they reached the spot. Only one man was found alive. From the davits, hanging head downward, was the lifeless body of a fair-haired boy of sixteen or thereabouts. The breakers swept him to and fro, and, drawing away, left his long yellow hair dripping with the freezing brine. The mate’s story was that he had gone to unfasten the boat which hung at the stern, that a sea had struck him, and he had fallen headforemost with his feet entangled in the ropes of the davits. He was the only son of his mother, who was a widow. They carried his body home to that most unhappy mother. The vessel was a total loss, with all on board, except the mate.

One winter night at Appledore when it was blowing very hard northwest, with a clear sky, we were wakened by a violent knocking at the door. So unaccustomed a sound, at that time of night too, was enough to startle us all, and very much amazed we were. The door was opened to admit four or five shipwrecked men, whose hands, feet, and ears were all frozen stiff,--pitiable objects they were indeed. Their vessel had struck full on York Ledge, a rock lying off the coast of Maine far east of us, and they had taken to the boat and strove to make a landing on the coast; but the wind blew off shore so fiercely they failed in their attempt, their hands became useless from the cold, they dropped their oars, and, half steering with one of the seats of the boat, managed to reach Appledore, more dead than alive. They were obliged to remain there several days before finding an opportunity of going on shore, the gale was so furious. Next morning, in the glare of the winter sunshine, we saw their vessel, still with all sail set, standing upright upon the ledge,--a white column looming far away. One of the most hideous experiences I have heard befell a young Norwegian now living at the Shoals. He and a young companion came out from Portsmouth to set their trawl, in the winter fishing, two years ago. Before they reached the island, came a sudden squall of wind and snow, chilling and blinding. In a few moments they knew not where they were, and the wind continued to sweep them away. Presently they found themselves under the lee of White Island Head; they threw out the road-lines of their trawl, in desperate hope that they might hold the boat till the squall abated. The keepers at the lighthouse saw the poor fellows, but were powerless to help them. Alas! the road-lines soon broke, and the little boat was swept off again, they knew not whither. Night came down upon them, tossed on that terrible black sea; the snow ceased, the clouds flew before the deadly cold northwest wind, the thermometer sank below zero. One of the men died before morning; the other, alone with the dead man, was still driven on and on before the pitiless gale. He had no cap nor mittens; had lost both. He bailed the boat incessantly, for the sea broke over him the livelong time. He told me the story himself. He looked down at the awful face of his dead friend and thought “how soon he should be like him”; but still he never ceased bailing,--it was all he could do. Before night he passed Cape Cod and knew it as he rushed by. Another unspeakably awful night, and the gale abated no whit. Next morning he was almost gone from cold, fatigue, and hunger. His eyes were so swollen he could hardly see; but afar off, shining whiter than silver in the sun, the sails of a large schooner appeared at the edge of the fearful wilderness. He managed to hoist a bit of old canvas on an oar. He was then not far from Holmes’ Hole, nearly two hundred miles from the Shoals! The schooner saw it and bore down for him, but the sea was running so high that he expected to be swamped every instant. As she swept past, they threw from the deck a rope with a loop at the end, tied with a bow-line knot that would not slip. It caught him over the head, and clutching it at his throat with both hands, in an instant he found himself in the sea among the ice-cold, furious waves, drawn toward the vessel with all the strength of her crew. Just before he emerged, he heard the captain shout, “We’ve lost him!” Ah the bitter moment! For a horrible fear struck through him that they might lose their hold an instant on the rope, and then he knew it would be all over. But they saved him. The boat with the dead man in it, all alone, went tossing, heaven knows where.

The great equinoctial gale of September 8, 1869, was very severe at the islands. One schooner went ashore on Cannon Point at Appledore, and was a complete wreck, though no lives were lost. She was lying in “The Roads,” between Star and Appledore, safely moored, her crew supposed; but she dragged moorings, anchors, everything with which they strove to save her, and crashed on the rocks, breaking up like an eggshell. Various buildings were blown down; windows at Appledore were blown in, in some cases sash and all, in others the glass was smashed as if the wind had thrust an arm through.

At about seven o’clock in the evening a great copper-colored arch spanned the black sky from west to east. The gale was then at its height. After that lurid bow dissolved, flying northward in wild, scattered fragments, the wind abated, and we began to take breath again. A man at Star, on the edge of the storm, rowed out in his dory to make more secure a larger boat moored at a little distance. Down came the hurricane and caught him, and whirled him away like a dead leaf on the surface of the sea. He gave himself up for lost, of course; so did his friends. But he fastened himself with ropes to the inside of the boat, and, tossing from billow to billow, bailed for dear life the whole night long. Toward morning, the wind lulling very considerably, he was carried along the coast of Maine, and landed in York, a short distance from his father’s home, and quietly walked into the house and joined the family at breakfast; then took the cars for Portsmouth, and astounded the whole Shoals settlement by appearing in the steamer Appledore in time for dinner. Everybody supposed him, without a shadow of doubt, to be at the bottom of the sea.

Boone Island is the forlornest place that can be imagined. The Isles of Shoals, barren as they are, seem like Gardens of Eden in comparison. I chanced to hear last summer of a person who had been born and brought up there; he described the loneliness as something absolutely fearful, and declared it had pursued him all through his life. He lived there till fourteen or fifteen years old, when his family moved to York. While living on the island he discovered some human remains which had lain there thirty years. A carpenter and his assistants, having finished some building, were capsized in getting off, and all were drowned, except the master. One body floated to Plum Island at the mouth of the Merrimack; the others the master secured, made a box for them,--all alone the while,--and buried them in a cleft and covered them with stones. These stones the sea washed away, and, thirty years after they were buried, the boy found the bones, which were removed to York and there buried again. It was on board a steamer bound to Bangor, that the man told his story. Boone Island Light was shining in the distance. He spoke with bitterness of his life in that terrible solitude, and of “the loneliness which had pursued him ever since.” All his relatives were dead, he said, and he had no human tie in the wide world except his wife. He ended by anathematizing all islands, and, vanishing into the darkness, was not to be found again; nor did his name or any trace of him transpire, though he was sought for in the morning all about the vessel.

One of the most shocking stories of shipwreck I remember to have heard is that of the Nottingham Galley, wrecked on this island in the year 1710. There is a narrative of this shipwreck existing, written by “John Deane, then commander of said Galley, but for many years after his Majesty’s consul for the ports of Flanders, residing at Ostend,” printed in 1762. The ship, of one hundred and twenty tons, carrying ten guns, with a crew of fourteen men, loaded partly in England and partly in Ireland, and sailed for Boston on the 25th of September, 1710. She made land on the 11th of December, and was wrecked on that fatal rock. At first the unhappy crew “treated each other with kindness and condolence, and prayed to God for relief.” The only things saved from the wreck were a bit of canvas and half a cheese. The men made a triangular tent of the bit of canvas, and all lay close together beneath it, sideways; none could turn without the general concurrence: they turned once in two hours upon public notice. They had no fire, and lived upon kelp and rockweed, and mussels, three a day to a man. Starvation and suffering soon produced a curious loss of memory. The fourth day the cook died. When they had been there upwards of a week, they saw three sails in the southwest, but no boat came near them. They built a rude boat of such materials as they could gather from the wreck, but she was lost in launching. One of the men, a Swede, is particularly mentioned; he seems to have been full of energy; with help from the others he built a raft; in launching this they overset it. Again they saw a sail, this time coming out from the Piscataqua River; it was soon out of sight. The Swede was determined to make an effort to reach the shore, and persuaded another man to make the attempt with him. At sunset they were seen half-way to the land; the raft was found on shore with the body of one man; the Swede was never seen more. A hide was thrown on the rocks at Boone Island by the sea; this the poor sailors ate raw, minced. About the end of December the carpenter died, and, driven to madness by hunger, they devoured the flesh of their dead comrade. The captain, being the strongest of the party, dragged the body away and hid it, and dealt small portions of it daily to the men. Immediately their dispositions underwent a horrible change. They became fierce and reckless, and were the most pitiable objects of despair, when, on January 4th, 1711, they were discovered and taken off. It was evening when they entered the Piscataqua River, and eight o’clock when they landed. Discovering a house through the darkness, the master rushed into it, frightening the gentlewoman and children desperately, and, making his way to the kitchen, snatched the pot wherein some food was cooking off the fire, and began to eat voraciously. This old record mentions John Plaisted and John Wentworth as being most “forward in benevolence” to these poor fellows.

When visiting the island for the first time, a few years ago, I was shown the shallow gorge where the unfortunates tried to shelter themselves. It was the serenest of summer days; everything smiled and shone as I stood looking down into that rocky hollow. Near by the lighthouse sprang--a splendid piece of masonry--over a hundred feet into the air, to hold its warning aloft. About its base some gentle thought had caused morning-glories to climb and unfold their violet, white, and rosy bells against the smooth, dark stone. I thought I had never seen flowers so beautiful. There was hardly a handful of grass on the island, hardly soil enough to hold a root; therefore it seemed the more wonderful to behold this lovely apparition. With my mind full of the story of the Nottingham Galley, I looked at the delicate bells, the cool green leaves, the whole airy grace of the wandering vines, and it was as if a hand were stretched out to pluck me away from the awful questions never to be answered this side the grave, that pressed so heavily while I thought how poor humanity had here suffered the utmost misery that it is possible to endure.

The aspect of this island from the Shoals is very striking, so lonely it lies on the eastern horizon, its tall lighthouse like a slender column against the sky. It is easily mistaken for the smokestack of a steamer by unaccustomed eyes, and sometimes the watcher most familiar with its appearance can hardly distinguish it from the distant white sails that steal by it, to and fro. Sometimes it looms colossal in the mirage of summer; in winter it lies blurred and ghostly at the edge of chilly sea and pallid sky. In the sad, strange light of winter sunsets, its faithful star blazes suddenly from the darkening east, and sends a friendly ray across to its neighbor at the Shoals, waiting as it also waits, ice-bound, storm-swept, and solitary, for gentler days to come. And “winter’s rains and ruins” have an end at last.

In the latter part of February, after ten days perhaps of the northwester, bringing across to the islands all the chill of the snow-covered hills of the continent, some happy evening it dies into a reasonable breeze, and, while the sun sets, you climb the snowy height, and sweep with your eyes the whole circle of the horizon, with nothing to impede the view. Ah! how sad it looks in the dying light! Star Island close by with its silent little village and the sails of belated fishing-boats hurrying in over the dark water to the moorings; White Island afar off “kindling its great red star”; on every side the long, bleached points of granite stretching out into the sea, so cold and bleak; the line of coast, sad purple; and the few schooners leaden and gray in the distance. Yet there is a hopeful glow where the sun went down, suggestive of the spring; and before the ruddy sweetness of the western sky the melancholy east is flushed with violet, and up into the delicious color rolls a gradual moon, mellow and golden as in harvest-time, while high above her the great star Jupiter begins to glitter clear. On such an evening some subtle influence of the coming spring steals to the heart, and eyes that have watched the winter skies so patiently grow wistful with the thought of summer days to come. On shore in these last weeks of winter one becomes aware, by various delicate tokens, of the beautiful change at hand,--by the deepening of the golden willow wands into a more living color, and by their silvery buds, which in favored spots burst the brown sheaths; by the reddening of bare maple-trees, as if with promise of future crimson flowers; by the sweet cry of the returning bluebird; by the alders at the river’s edge. If the season is mild, the catkins begin to unwind their tawny tresses in the first weeks of March. But here are no trees, and no bluebirds come till April. Perhaps some day the delightful clangor of the wild geese is heard, and looking upward, lo! the long, floating ribbon streaming northward across the sky. What joy they bring to hearts so weary with waiting! Truly a wondrous content is shaken down with their wild clamors out of the cloudy heights, and a courage and vigor lurk in these strong voices that touch the listener with something better than gladness, while he traces eagerly the wavering lines that seek the north with steady, measured flight.

Gradually the bitter winds abate; early in March the first flocks of crows arrive, and they soar finely above the coves, and perch on the flukes of stranded anchors or the tops of kellock-sticks that lie about the water’s edge. They are most welcome, for they are never seen in winter; and pleasant it is to watch them beating their black, ragged pinions in the blue, while the gulls swim on beyond them serenely, shining still whiter for their sable color. No other birds come till about the 27th of March, and then all at once the islands are alive with song-sparrows, and these sing from morning till night so beautifully that dull and weary indeed must be the mortal who can resist the charm of their fresh music. There is a matchless sweetness and good cheer in this brave bird. The nightingale singing with its breast against a thorn may be divine; yet would I turn away from its tender melody to listen to the fresh, cheerful, healthy song of this dauntless and happy little creature. They come in flocks to be fed every morning the whole summer long, tame and charming, with their warm brown and gray feathers, striped and freaked with wood-color, and little brown knots at each pretty throat! They build their nests, and remain till the snow falls; frequently they remain all winter; sometimes they come into the house for shelter; once one fluttered in and entered the canaries’ cage voluntarily, and stayed there singing like a voice from heaven all winter. Robins and blackbirds appear with the sparrows; a few blackbirds build and remain; the robins, finding no trees, flit across to the mainland. Yellow-birds and kingbirds occasionally build here, but very rarely. By the first of April the snow is gone, and our bit of earth is free from that dead white mask. How lovely then the gentle neutral tints of tawny intervals of dead grass and brown bushes and varying stone appear, set in the living sea! There is hardly a square foot of the bare rock that isn’t precious for its soft coloring; and freshly beautiful are the uncovered lichens that with patient fingering have ornamented the rough surfaces with their wonderful embroideries. They flourish with the greatest vigor by the sea; whole houses at Star used to be covered with the orange-colored variety, and I have noticed the same thing in the pretty fishing village of Newcastle and on some of the old buildings by the river-side in sleepy Portsmouth city. Through April the weather softens daily, and by the 20th come gray, quiet days with mild northeast wind; in the hollows the grass has greened, and now the gentle color seems to brim over and spread out upon the ground in faint and fainter gradations. A refreshing odor springs from the moist earth, from the short, sweet turf which the cattle crop so gladly,--a musky fragrance unlike that of inland pastures; and with this is mingled the pure sea-breeze,--a most reviving combination. The turfy gorges, boulder-strewn and still, remind one of Alexander Smith’s descriptions of his summer in Skye, of those quiet, lonely glens,--just such a grassy carpet was spread in their hollows. By the 23d of April come the first swallow and flocks of martins, golden-winged and downy woodpeckers, the tiny, ruby-crowned wren, and troops of many other kinds of birds; kingfishers that perch on stranded kellocks, little nuthatches that peck among the shingles for hidden spiders, and gladden the morning with sweet, quaint cries, so busy and bright and friendly! All these tarry only awhile in their passage to the mainland.

But though the birds come and the sky has relented and grown tender with its melting clouds, the weather in New England has a fashion of leaping back into midwinter in the space of an hour, and all at once comes half a hurricane from the northwest, charged with the breath of all the remaining snow-heaps on the far mountain ranges,--a “white-sea roarin’ wind” that takes you back to January. In the afternoon, through the cold, transparent heaven, a pale half-moon glides slowly over; there is a splendor of wild clouds at sunset, dusk heaps with scarlet fringes, scattered flecks of flame in a clear crimson air above the fallen sun; then cold moonlight over the black sea, with the flash and gleam of white waves the whole night long.

But the potent spirit of the spring triumphs at last. When the sun in its journey north passes a certain group of lofty pine-trees standing out distinctly against the sky on Breakfast Hill in Greenland, New Hampshire, which lies midway in the coast line, then the Shoalers are happy in the conviction that there will be “settled weather”; and they put no trust in any relenting of the elements before that time. After this there soon come days when to be alive is quite enough joy,--days when it is bliss only to watch and feel how

“God renews
His ancient rapture,”--

days when the sea lies, colored like a turquoise, blue and still, and from the south a band of warm, gray-purple haze steals down on the horizon like an encircling arm about the happy world. The lightest film encroaches upon the sea, only made perceptible by the shimmering of far-off sails. A kind of bloom, inexpressibly lovely, softens over the white canvas of nearer vessels, like a delicate veil. There is a fascination in the motion of these slender schooners, a wondrous grace, as they glide before a gentle wind, slowly bowing, bending, turning, with curving canvas just filled with the breeze, and shadows falling soft from sail to sail. They are all so picturesque, so suggestive, from the small, tanned spritsail some young islander spreads to flit to and fro among the rocks and ledges, to the stately column of canvas that bears the great ship round the world. The variety of their aspects is endless and ever beautiful, whether you watch them from the lighthouse-top, dreaming afar on the horizon, or at the water’s edge; whether they are drowned in the flood of sunshine on the waves, or glide darkly through the track of the moonlight, or fly toward you full of promise, wing and wing, like some magnificent bird, or steal away reddening in the sunset as if to

“Sink with all you love below the verge.”

I know nothing sadder than their aspect in the light of the winter sunsets, as they vanish in the cold east, blushing for a fleeting moment, sweetly, faintly, under the last touch of the dropping day. To a child’s imagination they are all full of charm and of mystery, freighted with heavenly dreams. “The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts,” and the watching of the sails filled the lonely, lovely summer days of one young Shoaler with joy enough and to spare. How many pictures linger in my mind,--splendid, stately apparitions of full-rigged, slender schooners, passing very near early in the breezy mornings of spring, every inch of canvas in a blaze of white light, and the whole vessel alive from keel to topmast. And well I remember on soft May evenings how they came dropping down from Cape Ann, while the sunset, streaming through low bars of cloud, just touched them with pale gold, and made them half luminous and altogether lovely; and how the fog clung in silver strips to the dark, wet sails of vessels lying becalmed when all the air about was clear and free from mist; how the mackerel fleet surrounded the islands, five hundred craft sometimes between the islands and the coast, so that one might almost walk on shore from deck to deck. It was wonderful to wake on some midsummer morning and find the sea gray-green, like translucent chrysoprase, and the somewhat stormy sunrise painting the sails bright flame-color as they flew before the warm, wild wind that blew strongly from the south. At night, sometimes, in a glory of moonlight, a vessel passed close in with all sail set, and only just air enough to fill the canvas, enough murmur from the full tide to drown the sound of her movement,--a beautiful ghost stealing softly by, and passing in mysterious light beyond the glimmering headland out of sight. Here was suggestion enough for a night full of visions! Then the scudding of sails before a storm,--how they came rushing in from the far, dim sea-line, racing by to Portsmouth Harbor, close-reefed, or under darkened mainsail and jib only, leaping over the long swell, and plunging their sharp bowsprits into a cloud of snowy spray at every leap! Then when the storm had spent itself, how beautiful to see them stealing tranquilly forth from the river’s mouth, flocking seaward again, shining white in the peaceful morning sunshine! Watching them in all their endless variety, coming and going, dreaming, drifting, or flying, many a time these quaint old rhymes occurred to me:--

“Ships, ships, I will descrie you
Amidst the main,
I will come and try you
What you are protecting,
And projecting,
What’s your end and aim?
Some go abroad for merchandise and trading,
Another stays to keep his country from invading,
A third is coming home with rich and wealthy lading.
Halloo! my fancie, whither wilt thou go?”

As the winter is doubly hard, so are the gentler seasons doubly sweet and delightful, when one is shut out with them, as it were, and forced to observe all their changes and peculiarities, with so few human interests to interrupt one’s intercourse with nature. The rainy days in May at the Isles of Shoals have seemed to me more lovely than the sunshine in Paradise could be, so charming it was to walk in the warm showers over our island, and note all the mosses and lichens drenched and bright with the moisture, thick, sweet buds on the bayberry bushes, rich green leaves unfolding here and there among the tangled vines, and bright anemones growing up between. The lovely eyebright glimmers everywhere. The rain, if it continues for several days, bleaches the sea-weed about the shores to a lighter and more golden brown, the sea is gray, and the sky lowers; but all these neutral tints are gentle and refreshing. The coasters rock lazily on the long swell toward Cape Ann, dim through low-hanging clouds; clearly the sandpipers call, and always the song-sparrows freshly surprise you with their outburst of cheerful music. In the last weeks of May comes a period of balmy days, with a gentle, incessant southwest wind, the sea a wonderful gray-blue, with the faint, impalpable haze lying over sails, islands, sea, and coast. A brooding warmth is everywhere. The sky is cloudless, but opaque,--a kind of milky effect in the atmosphere, through which the sun is seen as through smoked glass, and long before it sets one can bear to look at the crimson ball slow sinking in the rich, red west; and the moon is like copper, throwing no light on the water. The islanders call this a “smoky sou’wester.” Now come delicious twilights, with silence broken only by mysterious murmurs from the waves, and sweet, full cries from the sandpipers fluttering about their nests on the margin of the beaches,--tender, happy notes that thrill the balmy air, and echo softly about the silent, moonlit coves. Sails in this twilight atmosphere gather the dusk within their folds; if the warm wind is blowing softly, there is enchantment in the sound of the lazily-flapping canvas and in the long creak of the mast. A human voice borne through this breathing wind comes like a waft of music faintly heard across the water. The mornings now are exquisite, the delicate flush of the sunrise through this beautiful haze is indescribable. The island is indeed like

“A precious stone set in the silver sea,”