It was the strange half-light between yesterday and today. From an
intricate network of twisting, turning roads you could follow the
headlights of the cars as they moved from all points of the compass
toward the dark outline of the hill. The moist air formed diadems of
light around the headlamps and their beams sparkled from the gleaming,
rain-washed street. Sometimes the cars swerved to avoid a branch or
bush that had been tossed in their path by the gale winds of the
night. Sometimes the lights picked out some strange creature of the
night as it scurried into the brush beside the road, alarmed at this
unlooked-for intrusion upon its domain.
At length each car was in place upon the hill. There was still no
activity upon the Main Highway below which snaked its way down past
Quivet and Sesuit to the Outer Cape. The wavering lines of street
lights that from a distance twinkled through the branches seemed to
grow weaker as the night shadows were replaced by a silvery grayness.
The rain ended but the storm was not over. There was wind, howling
across the Bay from Manomet, tossing the flexible pines into confusion,
rattling the branches of maple and scrub oak that were thick with new
buds, making conversation nearly impossible among people who were
otherwise occupied anyway in clutching their billowing coats about
them. There was the Bay, lashed now into a white fury with huge combers
breaking out of a gray-green sea all along shore. You could hear the
sound of them as they hit the beach. In contrast to the Bay the lake
below looked peaceful, cold but peaceful, and a circling gull above
it rode with the wind. He did not move his wings nor did he make any
sound. It was cold all right and you could tell it by the look of the
trumpeter as the first notes of the grand old hymn broke across the
hills. Although no sun showed at the horizon, the sky above it showed
rosy hues and the swift-moving scud overhead revealed patches of blue
that had not been there before. The wind tore rudely at the pages of
the hymnals but from the group clustered in the lee of the stone tower
the notes came loud and true.
Soon you could tell for sure that the sun was up from the sea at
Chatham and that it was to be, after all, a wonderful day. Off across
the woodlands toward the Sound the trees began to cease their agitation
and the sun’s rays pierced the clouds to play about them. Along one
side of the Bay the long, low fore-arm of the Cape became visible as
though it had just then emerged from the sea; opposite, the cliffs of
Manomet were majestic and purple in the morning light.
As the light increased the air became clearer and there was a new
softness in it. There was a softness and a wonderful fresh taste and
you knew it was spring. The pale sleepiness had gone from the faces of
the people as it had from all the earth and in its place there was new
color that could have been born of the wind or of this special day.
Finally, the cars, that had groped their way up the hill through the
night-shadows, turned down the hill and along the twisting roads where
the first sunshine was already drying the roadside pools. The roads
were clean and the season was new and you could see the symbols of the
age-old hope and promise all about you.
So, at last, all the cars were gone and Scargo Hill was left alone to
drowse away the first early hours of a bright new day. Below on the
highway the street lights had gone out and, one by one, so had the
night lights in the old white houses along the way. From some houses
the first, gray curls of smoke from a morning fire drifted upwards. And
Easter Sunday, at the rising of the sun, had come to the Cape.