abode on leaving the mainland. I was scarcely five years old; but from
the upper windows of our dwelling in Portsmouth, I had been shown the
clustered masts of ships lying at the wharves along the Piscataqua
River, faintly outlined against the sky, and, baby as I was, even then
I was drawn, with a vague longing, seaward. How delightful was that
long, first sail to the Isles of Shoals! How pleasant the unaccustomed
sound of the incessant ripple against the boat-side, the sight of the
wide water and limitless sky, the warmth of the broad sunshine that
made us blink like young sandpipers as we sat in triumph, perched
among the household goods with which the little craft was laden! It
was at sunset in autumn that we were set ashore on that loneliest,
lovely rock, where the lighthouse looked down on us like some tall,
black-capped giant, and filled me with awe and wonder. At its base a
few goats were grouped on the rock, standing out dark against the red
sky as I looked up at them. The stars were beginning to twinkle; the
wind blew cold, charged with the sea’s sweetness; the sound of many
waters half bewildered me. Some one began to light the lamps in the
tower. Rich red and golden, they swung round in mid-air; everything was
strange and fascinating and new. We entered the quaint little old
stone cottage that was for six years our home. How curious it seemed,
with its low, whitewashed ceiling and deep window-seats, showing the
great thickness of the walls made to withstand the breakers, with
whose force we soon grew acquainted! A blissful home the little house
became to the children who entered it that quiet evening and slept
for the first time lulled by the murmur of the encircling sea. I do
not think a happier triad ever existed than we were, living in that
profound isolation. It takes so little to make a healthy child happy;
and we never wearied of our few resources. True, the winters seemed
as long as a whole year to our little minds, but they were pleasant,
nevertheless. Into the deep window-seats we climbed, and with pennies
(for which we had no other use) made round holes in the thick frost,
breathing on them till they were warm, and peeped out at the bright,
fierce, windy weather, watching the vessels scudding over the intensely
dark blue sea, all “feather-white” where the short waves broke hissing
in the cold, and the sea-fowl soaring aloft or tossing on the water;
or, in calmer days, we saw how the stealthy Star-Islander paddled among
the ledges, or lay for hours stretched on the wet sea-weed, with his
gun, watching for wild-fowl. Sometimes the round head of a seal moved
about among the kelp-covered rocks. A few are seen every winter, and
are occasionally shot; but they are shyer and more alert even than the
birds.
We were forced to lay in stores of all sorts in the autumn, as if we
were fitting out a ship for an Arctic expedition. The lower story of
the lighthouse was hung with mutton and beef, and the store-room packed
with provisions.
In the long, covered walk that bridged the gorge between the lighthouse
and the house, we played in stormy days; and every evening it was a
fresh excitement to watch the lighting of the lamps, and think how far
the lighthouse sent its rays, and how many hearts it gladdened with
assurance of safety. As I grew older I was allowed to kindle the lamps
sometimes myself. That was indeed a pleasure. So little a creature as
I might do that much for the great world! But by the fireside our best
pleasure lay,--with plants and singing birds and books and playthings
and loving care and kindness the cold and stormy season wore itself at
last away, and died into the summer calm. We hardly saw a human face
beside our own all winter; but with the spring came manifold life to
our lonely dwelling,--human life among other forms. Our neighbors
from Star rowed across; the pilot-boat from Portsmouth steered over,
and brought us letters, newspapers, magazines, and told us the news
of months. The faint echoes from the far-off world hardly touched us
little ones. We listened to the talk of our elders. “Winfield Scott and
Santa Anna!” “The war in Mexico!” “The famine in Ireland!” It all meant
nothing to us. We heard the reading aloud of details of the famine,
and saw tears in the eyes of the reader, and were vaguely sorry; but
the fate of Red Riding-Hood was much more near and dreadful to us. We
waited for the spring with an eager longing; the advent of the growing
grass, the birds and flowers and insect life, the soft skies and softer
winds, the everlasting beauty of the thousand tender tints that clothed
the world,--these things brought us unspeakable bliss. To the heart of
Nature one must needs be drawn in such a life; and very soon I learned
how richly she repays in deep refreshment the reverent love of her
worshipper. With the first warm days we built our little mountains of
wet gravel on the beach, and danced after the sandpipers at the edge
of the foam, shouted to the gossiping kittiwakes that fluttered above,
or watched the pranks of the burgomaster gull, or cried to the crying
loons. The gannet’s long, white wings stretched overhead, perhaps, or
the dusky shag made a sudden shadow in mid-air, or we startled on some
lonely ledge the great blue heron that flew off, trailing legs and
wings, stork-like, against the clouds. Or, in the sunshine on the bare
rocks, we cut from the broad, brown leaves of the slippery, varnished
kelps, grotesque shapes of man and bird and beast that withered in the
wind and blew away; or we fashioned rude boats from bits of driftwood,
manned them with a weird crew of kelpies, and set them adrift on the
great deep, to float we cared not whither.
We played with the empty limpet-shells; they were mottled gray and
brown, like the song-sparrow’s breast. We launched fleets of purple
mussel-shells on the still pools in the rocks, left by the tide,--pools
that were like bits of fallen rainbow with the wealth of the sea, with
tints of delicate sea-weeds, crimson and green and ruddy brown and
violet; where wandered the pearly eolis with rosy spines and fairy
horns; and the large, round sea-urchins, like a boss upon a shield,
were fastened here and there on the rock at the bottom, putting out
from their green, prickly spikes transparent tentacles to seek their
invisible food. Rosy and lilac star-fish clung to the sides; in some
dark nook, perhaps, a holothure unfolded its perfect ferns, a lovely,
warm buff color, delicate as frost-work; little forests of coralline
moss grew up in stillness, gold-colored shells crept about, and now
and then flashed the silver-darting fins of slender minnows. The
dimmest recesses were haunts of sea-anemones that opened wide their
starry flowers to the flowing tide, or drew themselves together, and
hung in large, half-transparent drops, like clusters of some strange,
amber-colored fruit, along the crevices as the water ebbed away.
Sometimes we were cruel enough to capture a female lobster hiding in
a deep cleft, with her millions of mottled eggs; or we laughed to see
the hermit-crabs challenge each other, and come out and fight a deadly
battle till the stronger overcame, and, turning the weaker topsy-turvy,
possessed himself of his ampler cockle-shell, and scuttled off with it
triumphant. Or, pulling all together, we dragged up the long kelps, or
devil’s-aprons; their roots were almost always fastened about large,
living mussels; these we unclasped, carrying the mussels home to be
cooked; fried in crumbs or batter, they were as good as oysters. We
picked out from the kelp-roots a kind of star-fish which we called
sea-spider; the moment we touched it an extraordinary process began.
One by one it disjointed all its sections,--whether from fear or anger
we knew not; but it threw itself away, bit by bit, until nothing was
left of it save the little, round body whence the legs had sprung!
With crab and limpet, with grasshopper and cricket, we were friends
and neighbors, and we were never tired of watching the land-spiders
that possessed the place. Their webs covered every window-pane to
the lighthouse top, and they rebuilt them as fast as they were swept
down. One variety lived among the round gray stones on the beach,
just above high-water mark, and spun no webs at all. Large and black,
they speckled the light stones, swarming in the hot sun; at the first
footfall they vanished beneath the pebbles.
All the cracks in the rocks were draped with swinging veils like the
window-panes. How often have we marvelled at them, after a fog or a
heavy fall of dew, in the early morning, when every slender thread was
strung with glittering drops,--the whole symmetrical web a wonder of
shining jewels trembling in the breeze! Tennyson’s lines,
“The cobweb woven across the cannon’s throat
Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more,”
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.