More Jonathan Papers Part 24

Not br.i.m.m.i.n.g over, though, said Jonathan.

I should hope not! But it does seem to me there are very few inches between it and our feet.

And the tide is still rising, of course, said Jonathan, by way of comfort.

Jonathan, I know just where high-tide mark is, and were fully twelve inches above it.

Silence.

Arent we?

Oh, was that a question? murmured Jonathan. Why, yes, I think we are at least that.

Of course, there are extra high tides sometimes.

Silence.

Jonathan, do you know when they come?

Not exactly.

Well, I dont care. I love it, anyway. Only it seems so much bigger and colder at night, the water does.

At last I drowsed, waking now and then to raise my head and just glance down at those wavesthey certainly sounded as if they were lapping the sand close by my ear. No, there they were, quite within bounds, fully twenty feet away from my toes. Of course it was all right. I slept again, and dreamed that the tide rose and rose; the waves ran merrily up the beach, ran up on both sides of us, closed in behind us. We were lying on a little sand island, and the waves nibbled at its edgesnibbled and nibbled and nibbledthe island was being nibbled up. This would never do! We must move! And I woke. _Ripple, ripple, swas.h.!.+_ _ripple, ripple, swas.h.!.+_ went the unconscious waves. As I raised my head I saw the pale beach stretching off under the moon-washed mists of middle night. Rea.s.sured, I sank back, and when I waked again the big sun was well above the rim of the waters and all the little waves were dancing and the wet curves of the beach were gleaming in the new day.

The water was not always restless at night. The next time we camped we found a little harbor within a harbor, a crescent curve of fine white sand ending in a point of rock. In one of its clefts we made our fire and broiled our plover, ranging them on spits of bay so that they hung over the two edges of rock like people looking down into a miniature Grand Canon. There were nine of them, fat and sputtering, and while they cooked, we made toast and arranged the camp. Then we had supper, and watched the red coals smouldering and the white moonlight filling the world with a radiance that put out the stars and brought the blue back to the sky. The little basin of the bay was quiet as a pool, the air was full of stillness, with now and then the hushed _flip-flip_ of a tiny wave that had somehow strayed in from the tumbling crowd outside.

We slept well, but once Jonathan waked me. Look! he whispered, White heron.

I raised my head. There, quite near us in the shallow water, stood a great pale bird, motionless, on one long, slim leg, his oval body, long neck, head and bill clearly outlined against the bright water beyond. The mirror of the water reflected perfectly the soft outline, making a double creature, one above and one below, with that slim stem of leg between.

I watched him until my neck grew tired. He never moved. Out beyond him, more dim, stood his mate, motionless too. Now and then they called to each other, with queer, harsh talk that made the stillness all the stiller when it closed in again.

When we awoke, they were gone, but we found the heronry that morning on one of the oak-covered knolls that rise like islands out of the heart of the great salt marshes.

All through the cruise, the big winds were with us more than we had expected. They gave us, for the most part, a right good time. For even in the partly protected Sound it is possible to stir up a sea rough enough to keep one busy. Each wave, as it came galloping up, was an antagonist to be dealt with. If we met it successfully, it galloped on, and left us none the worse for it. If we did not, it meant, perhaps, that its foaming white mane brushed our shoulders, or swept across our laps, or, worse still, drowned our guns. Once, indeed, we were threatened with something a little more serious. We were running down out of the Connecticut River, gliding smoothly over sleek water. It was delicious rowing, and the boat shot along swiftly. As we turned westward, it grew rougher, but we were paying no special heed to this when suddenly I became conscious of something dark over my right shoulder. I turned my head, and found myself looking up into the evil heart of a dull green breaker. I gasped, Look out! and dug my oar. Jonathan glanced, pulled, there was a moment of doubt, then the huge dark bulk was shouldering heavily away, off our starboard quarter. It was only the first of its ugly company. Through sheer carelessness, we had run, as it were, into an ambushone of the worst bits of water on the Sound, where tide and river currents meet and wrangle. All around us were rearing, white-maned breakers, though the impression we got was less of their white manes than of their dark sides as they rose over us. Our problem was to meet each one fairly, and yet s.n.a.t.c.h every moment of respite to slant off toward the harborage inside the breakwaters. It took all our strength and all our skill, and all the resources of the good little boat. But we made it, after perhaps half an hour of stiff work.

Then we rested, breathed, and went on. We did not talk much about it until we made camp that night. Then, as we sat looking out over the quiet water, I told Jonathan about the shadow over my shoulder.

It was like seeing a ghost, I said,nomore like feeling the hand of an enemy on your shoulder.

The Black Douglas, suggested Jonathan.

Yes. Talk about the scientific att.i.tudeyouve just got to personify things when they come at you like that. That wave had an expressionan ugly one. I dont wonder the Northmen felt as they did about the sea and the waves. They took it all personallythey had to!

Were you frightened? asked Jonathan.

No, of course not, I said, almost too promptly. Then I meditatedI dont know what youd call itbut I believe I understand now what people mean when they talk about their hearts going down into their boots.

Did yours?

Why, not exactlybutwellit certainly did feel suddenly very thick and heavyas if it had droppedperhaps an inch or two.

I believe, said Jonathan gently, you might almost call that being frightened.

Yes, perhaps you might. Tell mewere you?

I didnt like ityes, I was anxiousand it made me tired to have been such a foolthe whole thing was absolutely unnecessary, if wed looked up the charts carefully.

Or asked a few questions. But you know you hate to ask questions.

You could have asked them.

Well, anyway, arent you glad it happened?

Oh, of course; it was an experience.

Do you want to do it again?

Nohe was emphaticnot with that load.

Neither do I.

If the winds sometimes wearied us a little, they helped us, too. We can never forget the evening we turned into the Thames River, making for the shelter of a friends hospitable roof. We had battled most of that day with the diagonal onslaughts of a southeast gale, bringing with it the full swing of the ocean swell. It was easier than a southwester would have been, but that was the best that could be said for it.

We pa.s.sed the last buoy and turned our bow north. And suddenly, the great waves that had all day kept us on the defensive became our strong helpers.

They took us up and swung us forward on our course with great sweeping rushes of motion. The tide was setting in, too, and with that and our oars we were going almost as fast as the waves themselves, so that when one picked us up, it swung us a long way before it left us. We learned to watch for each roller, wait till one came up astern, then pull with all our might so that we went swooping down its long slope, its crest at first just behind our stern, but drawing more and more under us, until it pa.s.sed beyond our bow and dropped us in the trough to wait for the next giant. It was like going in a swing, but with the downward rush very long and swift, and the upward rise short and slow. How long it took us to make the two miles to our friends dock we shall never know. Probably only a few minutes. But it was not an experience in time. We had a sense of being at one with the great primal forces of wind and water, and at one with them, not in their moments of poise, but in their moments of resistless power.

After all, the only drawback to the cruise was that it was over too soon.

When, in the quiet afternoon light of the last day, a familiar headland floated into view, my first feeling was one of joy; for beyond that headland, what friendly faces waited for usfaces turned even now, perhaps, toward the east for a first glimpse of our little boat. But hard after this, came a pang of regret.i.t was over, our water-pilgrimage, and I wanted it to go on.

It was over. And yet, not really over after all. I sometimes think that pleasures ought to be valued according to whether they are over when they _are_ over, or not. You cannot eat your cake and have it too. True, but that is because it is cake. There are other things which you can eat, and still have. And our rowboat cruise is one of these. It is over, and yet it is not over. It never will be. I can shut my eyesindeed, I do not need even to shut themand again I am under the open sky, I am afloat in the sun and the wind, with the waters all around me. I see again the surf-edged curves of the beaches, the lines of the sand-cliffs, the ragged horizon edge, cut and jagged by the waves. I feel the boat, I feel the oars, I am aware of the damp, pure night air, and the sounds of the waves ceaselessly breaking on the sand.

It is not over. Its best things are still ours, and those things which were hardly pleasures then have become such now. As we remember our aching muscles and blistered hands, we smile. As we recall times of intense weariness, of irritation, of anxiety, we find ourselves lingering over them with enjoyment. For memory does something wonderful with experience.

It is a poet, and life is its raw material. I know that our cruise was made up of minutes, of oar-strokes, so many that to count them would be weariness unending. But in my memory, these things are re-created. I see a boundless stretch of windy or peaceful waters. I see the endless line of misty coast. I see lovely islands, sleeping alone, waiting to be possessed by those who come. And I see a little, little boat, faring along the coast-lands, out to the islands, over the watersgoing on, and on, and on.

THE END