SOME TIME AFTER Mrs. Fosdick's visit was over and we had returned to
our former quietness, I was out sailing alone with Captain Bowden in his
large boat. We were taking the crooked northeasterly channel seaward,
and were well out from shore while it was still early in the afternoon.
I found myself presently among some unfamiliar islands, and suddenly
remembered the story of poor Joanna. There is something in the fact of a
hermitage that cannot fail to touch the imagination; the recluses are
a sad kindred, but they are never commonplace. Mrs. Todd had truly said
that Joanna was like one of the saints in the desert; the loneliness of
sorrow will forever keep alive their sad succession.
“Where is Shell-heap Island?” I asked eagerly.
“You see Shell-heap now, layin' 'way out beyond Black Island there,”
answered the captain, pointing with outstretched arm as he stood, and
holding the rudder with his knee.
“I should like very much to go there,” said I, and the captain, without
comment, changed his course a little more to the eastward and let the
reef out of his mainsail.
“I don't know's we can make an easy landin' for ye,” he remarked
doubtfully. “May get your feet wet; bad place to land. Trouble is I
ought to have brought a tag-boat; but they clutch on to the water so,
an' I do love to sail free. This gre't boat gets easy bothered with
anything trailin'. 'Tain't breakin' much on the meetin'-house ledges;
guess I can fetch in to Shell-heap.”
“How long is it since Miss Joanna Todd died?” I asked, partly by way of
explanation.
“Twenty-two years come September,” answered the captain, after
reflection. “She died the same year as my oldest boy was born, an' the
town house was burnt over to the Port. I didn't know but you merely
wanted to hunt for some o' them Indian relics. Long's you want to see
where Joanna lived--No, 'tain't breakin' over the ledges; we'll manage
to fetch across the shoals somehow, 'tis such a distance to go 'way
round, and tide's a-risin',” he ended hopefully, and we sailed steadily
on, the captain speechless with intent watching of a difficult course,
until the small island with its low whitish promontory lay in full view
before us under the bright afternoon sun.
The month was August, and I had seen the color of the islands change
from the fresh green of June to a sunburnt brown that made them look
like stone, except where the dark green of the spruces and fir balsam
kept the tint that even winter storms might deepen, but not fade. The
few wind-bent trees on Shell-heap Island were mostly dead and gray,
but there were some low-growing bushes, and a stripe of light green ran
along just above the shore, which I knew to be wild morning-glories. As
we came close I could see the high stone walls of a small square field,
though there were no sheep left to assail it; and below, there was a
little harbor-like cove where Captain Bowden was boldly running the
great boat in to seek a landing-place. There was a crooked channel of
deep water which led close up against the shore.
“There, you hold fast for'ard there, an' wait for her to lift on the
wave. You'll make a good landin' if you're smart; right on the port-hand
side!” the captain called excitedly; and I, standing ready with high
ambition, seized my chance and leaped over to the grassy bank.
“I'm beat if I ain't aground after all!” mourned the captain
despondently.
But I could reach the bowsprit, and he pushed with the boat-hook, while
the wind veered round a little as if on purpose and helped with the
sail; so presently the boat was free and began to drift out from shore.
“Used to call this p'int Joanna's wharf privilege, but 't has worn away
in the weather since her time. I thought one or two bumps wouldn't hurt
us none,--paint's got to be renewed, anyway,--but I never thought she'd
tetch. I figured on shyin' by,” the captain apologized. “She's too gre't
a boat to handle well in here; but I used to sort of shy by in Joanna's
day, an' cast a little somethin' ashore--some apples or a couple o'
pears if I had 'em--on the grass, where she'd be sure to see.”
I stood watching while Captain Bowden cleverly found his way back to
deeper water. “You needn't make no haste,” he called to me; “I'll keep
within call. Joanna lays right up there in the far corner o' the field.
There used to be a path led to the place. I always knew her well. I was
out here to the funeral.”
I found the path; it was touching to discover that this lonely spot was
not without its pilgrims. Later generations will know less and less of
Joanna herself, but there are paths trodden to the shrines of solitude
the world over,--the world cannot forget them, try as it may; the feet
of the young find them out because of curiosity and dim foreboding;
while the old bring hearts full of remembrance. This plain anchorite had
been one of those whom sorrow made too lonely to brave the sight of men,
too timid to front the simple world she knew, yet valiant enough to live
alone with her poor insistent human nature and the calms and passions of
the sea and sky.
The birds were flying all about the field; they fluttered up out of the
grass at my feet as I walked along, so tame that I liked to think they
kept some happy tradition from summer to summer of the safety of nests
and good fellowship of mankind. Poor Joanna's house was gone except
the stones of its foundations, and there was little trace of her flower
garden except a single faded sprig of much-enduring French pinks, which
a great bee and a yellow butterfly were befriending together. I drank at
the spring, and thought that now and then some one would follow me from
the busy, hard-worked, and simple-thoughted countryside of the mainland,
which lay dim and dreamlike in the August haze, as Joanna must have
watched it many a day. There was the world, and here was she with
eternity well begun. In the life of each of us, I said to myself, there
is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret
happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and recluse of an hour
or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell to whatever age of
history they may belong.
But as I stood alone on the island, in the sea-breeze, suddenly
there came a sound of distant voices; gay voices and laughter from a
pleasure-boat that was going seaward full of boys and girls. I knew, as
if she had told me, that poor Joanna must have heard the like on many
and many a summer afternoon, and must have welcomed the good cheer
in spite of hopelessness and winter weather, and all the sorrow and
disappointment in the world.