"I don"t know, Mrs. Wishart. It is so great! and it is so beautiful!
and it is so awful!"
"Beautiful?" said Mrs. Wishart. "I confess I do not see it. I suppose it is your gain, Lois. Yes, it is awful enough in a storm, but not to-day. The sea is quiet."
Quiet! with those low-rolling, majestic soft billows. The quiet of a lion asleep with his head upon his paws. Lois did not say what she thought.
"And you have never seen the sea-sh.o.r.e yet," Mrs. Wishart went on.
"Well, you will have enough of the sea at the Isles. And those are they, I fancy, yonder. Are those the Isles of Shoals?" she asked a pa.s.sing man of the crew; and was answered with a rough voiced, "Yaw, mum; they be th" oisles."
Lois gazed now at those distant brown spots, as the vessel drew nearer and nearer. Brown spots they remained, and, to her surprise, _small_ brown spots. Nearer and nearer views only forced the conviction deeper.
The Isles seemed to be merely some rough rocky projections from old Ocean"s bed, too small to have beauty, too rough to have value. Were those the desired Isles of Shoals? Lois felt deep disappointment.
Little bits of bare rock in the midst of the sea; nothing more. No trees, she was sure; as the light fell she could even see no green. Why would they not be better relegated to Ocean"s domain, from which they were only saved by a few feet of upheaval? why should anybody live there? and still more, why should anybody make a pleasure visit there?
"I suppose the people are all fishermen?" she said to Mrs. Wishart.
"I suppose so. O, there is a house of entertainment--a sort of hotel."
"How many people live there?"
"My dear, I don"t know. A handful, I should think, by the look of the place. What tempts _them_, I don"t see."
Nor did Lois. She was greatly disappointed. All her fairy visions were fled. No meadows, no shady banks, no soft green dales; nothing she had ever imagined in connection with country loveliness. Her expectations sank down, collapsed, and vanished for ever.
She showed nothing of all this. She helped Mrs. Wishart gather her small baggage together, and followed her on sh.o.r.e, with her usual quiet thoughtfulness; saw her established in the hotel, and a.s.sisted her to get things a little in order. But then, when the elder lady lay down to "catch a nap," as she said, before tea, Lois seized her flat hat and fled out of the house.
There was gra.s.s around it, and sheep and cows to be seen. Alas, no trees. But there were bushes certainly growing here and there, and Lois had not gone far before she found a flower. With that in her hand she sped on, out of the little gra.s.sy vale, upon the rocks that surrounded it, and over them, till she caught sight of the sea. Then she made her way, as she could, over the roughnesses and hindrances of the rocks, till she got near the edge of the island at that place; and sat down a little above where the billows of the Atlantic were rolling in. The wide sea line was before her, with its mysterious and infinite depth of colour; at her feet the waves were coming in and breaking, slow and gently to-day, yet every one seeming to make an invasion of the little rocky domain which defied it, and to retire unwillingly, foiled, beaten, and broken, to gather new forces and come on again for a new attack. Lois watched them, fascinated by their persistence, their sluggish power, and yet their ever-recurring discomfiture; admired the changing colours and hues of the water, endlessly varying, cool and lovely and delicate, contrasting with the wet washed rocks and the dark line of sea-weed lying where high tide had cast it up. The breeze blew in her face gently, but filled with freshness, life, and pungency of the salt air; sea-birds flew past hither and thither, sometimes uttering a cry; there was no sound in earth or heaven but that of the water and the wild birds. And by and by the silence, and the broad freedom of nature, and the sweet freshness of the life-giving breeze, began to take effect upon the watcher. She drank in the air in deep breaths; she watched with growing enjoyment the play of light and colour which offered such an endless variety; she let slip, softly and insensibly, every thought and consideration which had any sort of care attached to it; her heart grew light, as her lungs took in the salt breath, which had upon her somewhat the effect of champagne. Lois was at no time a very heavy-hearted person; and I lack a similitude which should fitly image the elastic bound her spirits made now. She never stirred from her seat, till it suddenly came into her head to remember that there might be dinner or supper in prospect somewhere. She rose then and made her way back to the hotel, where she found Mrs. Wishart just arousing from her sleep.
"Well, Lois" said the lady, with the sleep still in her voice, "where have you been? and what have you got? and what sort of a place have we come to?"
"Look at that, Mrs. Wishart!"
"What"s that? A white violet! Violets here, on these rocks?"
"Did you ever see _such_ a white violet? Look at the size of it, and the colour of it. And here"s pimpernel. And O, Mrs. Wishart, I am so glad we came here, that I don"t know what to do! It is just delightful.
The air is the best air I ever saw."
"Can you _see_ it, my dear? Well, I am glad you are pleased. What"s that bell for, dinner or supper? I suppose all the meals here are alike. Let us go down and see."
Lois had an excellent appet.i.te.
"This fish is very good, Mrs. Wishart."
"O my dear, it is just fish! You are in a mood to glorify everything. I am envious of you, Lois."
"But it is really capital; it is so fresh. I don"t believe you can get such blue fish in New York."
"My dear, it is your good appet.i.te. I wish I was as hungry, for anything, as you are."
"Is it Mrs. Wishart?" asked a lady who sat opposite them at the table.
She spoke politely, with an accent of hope and expectation. Mrs.
Wishart acknowledged the ident.i.ty.
"I am very happy to meet you. I was afraid I might find absolutely no one here that I knew. I was saying only the other day--three days ago; this is Friday, isn"t it? yes; it was last Tuesday. I was saying to my sister after our early dinner--we always have early dinner at home, and it comes quite natural here--we were sitting together after dinner, and talking about my coming. I have been meaning to come ever since three years ago; wanting to make this trip, and never could get away, until this summer things opened out to let me. I was saying to Lottie I was afraid I should find n.o.body here that I could speak to; and when I saw you, I said to myself, Can that be Mrs. Wishart?--I am so very glad.
You have just come?"
"To-day,"--Mrs. Wishart a.s.sented.
"Came by water?"
"From Portsmouth."
"Yes--ha, ha!" said the affable lady. "Of course. You could not well help it. But from New York?"
"By railway. I had occasion to come by land."
"I prefer it always. In a steamer you never know what will happen to you. If it"s good weather, you may have a pleasant time; but you never can tell. I took the steamer once to go to Boston--I mean to Stonington, you know; and the boat was so loaded with freight of some sort or other that she was as low down in the water as she could be and be safe; and I didn"t think she was safe. And we went so slowly! and then we had a storm, a regular thunderstorm and squall, and the rain poured in torrents, and the Sound was rough, and people were sick, and I was very glad and thankful when we got to Stonington. I thought it would never be for pleasure that I would take a boat again."
"The Fall River boats are the best."
"I daresay they are, but I hope to be allowed to keep clear of them all. You had a pleasant morning for the trip over from Portsmouth."
"Very pleasant."
"It is such a gain to have the sea quiet! It roars and beats here enough in the best of times. I am sure I hope there will not a storm come while we are here; for I should think it must be dreadfully dreary. It"s all sea here, you know."
"I should like to see what a storm here is like," Lois remarked.
"O, don"t wish that!" cried the lady, "or your wish may bring it. Don"t think me a heathen," she added, laughing; "but I have known such queer things. I must tell you--"
"You never knew a wish bring fair weather?" said Lois, smiling, as the lady stopped for a mouthful of omelet.
"O no, not fair weather; I am sure, if it did, we should have fair weather a great deal more than we do. But I was speaking of a storm, and I must tell you what I have seen.--These fish are very deliciously cooked!"
"They understand fish, I suppose, here," said Lois.
"We were going down the bay to escort some friends who were going to Europe. There was my cousin Llewellyn and his wife, and her sister, and one or two others in the party; and Lottie and I went to see them off.
I always think it"s rather a foolish thing to do, for why shouldn"t one say good-bye at the water"s edge, when they go on board, instead of making a journey of miles out to sea to say it there?--but this time Lottie wanted to go. She had never seen the ocean, except from the land; and you know that is very different; so we went. Lottie always likes to see all she can, and is never satisfied till she has got to the bottom of everything--"
"She would be satisfied with something less than that in this case?"
said Lois.
"Hey? She was satisfied," said the lady, not apparently catching Lois"s meaning; "she was more delighted with the sea than I was; for though it was quiet, they said, there was unquietness enough to make a good deal of motion; the vessel went sailing up and down a succession of small rolling hills, and I began to think there was nothing steady inside of me, any more than _out_side. I never can bear to be rocked, in any shape or form."
"You must have been a troublesome baby," said Lois.
"I don"t know how that was; naturally I have forgotten; but since I have been old enough to think for myself, I never could bear rocking-chairs. I like an easy-chair--as easy as you please--but I want it to stand firm upon its four legs. So I did not enjoy the water quite as well as my sister did. But she grew enthusiastic; she wished she was going all the way over, and I told her she would have to drop _me_ at some wayside station--"
"Where?" said Lois, as the lady stopped to carry her coffee cup to her lips. The question seemed not to have been heard.