crows arrive, and they soar finely above the coves, and perch on the
flukes of stranded anchors or the tops of kellock-sticks that lie
about the water’s edge. They are most welcome, for they are never
seen in winter; and pleasant it is to watch them beating their black,
ragged pinions in the blue, while the gulls swim on beyond them
serenely, shining still whiter for their sable color. No other birds
come till about the 27th of March, and then all at once the islands
are alive with song-sparrows, and these sing from morning till night
so beautifully that dull and weary indeed must be the mortal who can
resist the charm of their fresh music. There is a matchless sweetness
and good cheer in this brave bird. The nightingale singing with its
breast against a thorn may be divine; yet would I turn away from its
tender melody to listen to the fresh, cheerful, healthy song of this
dauntless and happy little creature. They come in flocks to be fed
every morning the whole summer long, tame and charming, with their
warm brown and gray feathers, striped and freaked with wood-color,
and little brown knots at each pretty throat! They build their nests,
and remain till the snow falls; frequently they remain all winter;
sometimes they come into the house for shelter; once one fluttered in
and entered the canaries’ cage voluntarily, and stayed there singing
like a voice from heaven all winter. Robins and blackbirds appear with
the sparrows; a few blackbirds build and remain; the robins, finding
no trees, flit across to the mainland. Yellow-birds and kingbirds
occasionally build here, but very rarely. By the first of April the
snow is gone, and our bit of earth is free from that dead white mask.
How lovely then the gentle neutral tints of tawny intervals of dead
grass and brown bushes and varying stone appear, set in the living sea!
There is hardly a square foot of the bare rock that isn’t precious for
its soft coloring; and freshly beautiful are the uncovered lichens that
with patient fingering have ornamented the rough surfaces with their
wonderful embroideries. They flourish with the greatest vigor by the
sea; whole houses at Star used to be covered with the orange-colored
variety, and I have noticed the same thing in the pretty fishing
village of Newcastle and on some of the old buildings by the river-side
in sleepy Portsmouth city. Through April the weather softens daily,
and by the 20th come gray, quiet days with mild northeast wind; in the
hollows the grass has greened, and now the gentle color seems to brim
over and spread out upon the ground in faint and fainter gradations.
A refreshing odor springs from the moist earth, from the short, sweet
turf which the cattle crop so gladly,--a musky fragrance unlike that
of inland pastures; and with this is mingled the pure sea-breeze,--a
most reviving combination. The turfy gorges, boulder-strewn and still,
remind one of Alexander Smith’s descriptions of his summer in Skye, of
those quiet, lonely glens,--just such a grassy carpet was spread in
their hollows. By the 23d of April come the first swallow and flocks of
martins, golden-winged and downy woodpeckers, the tiny, ruby-crowned
wren, and troops of many other kinds of birds; kingfishers that perch
on stranded kellocks, little nuthatches that peck among the shingles
for hidden spiders, and gladden the morning with sweet, quaint cries,
so busy and bright and friendly! All these tarry only awhile in their
passage to the mainland.
But though the birds come and the sky has relented and grown tender
with its melting clouds, the weather in New England has a fashion of
leaping back into midwinter in the space of an hour, and all at once
comes half a hurricane from the northwest, charged with the breath of
all the remaining snow-heaps on the far mountain ranges,--a “white-sea
roarin’ wind” that takes you back to January. In the afternoon,
through the cold, transparent heaven, a pale half-moon glides slowly
over; there is a splendor of wild clouds at sunset, dusk heaps with
scarlet fringes, scattered flecks of flame in a clear crimson air above
the fallen sun; then cold moonlight over the black sea, with the flash
and gleam of white waves the whole night long.
But the potent spirit of the spring triumphs at last. When the sun in
its journey north passes a certain group of lofty pine-trees standing
out distinctly against the sky on Breakfast Hill in Greenland, New
Hampshire, which lies midway in the coast line, then the Shoalers are
happy in the conviction that there will be “settled weather”; and they
put no trust in any relenting of the elements before that time. After
this there soon come days when to be alive is quite enough joy,--days
when it is bliss only to watch and feel how
“God renews
His ancient rapture,”--
days when the sea lies, colored like a turquoise, blue and still, and
from the south a band of warm, gray-purple haze steals down on the
horizon like an encircling arm about the happy world. The lightest
film encroaches upon the sea, only made perceptible by the shimmering
of far-off sails. A kind of bloom, inexpressibly lovely, softens over
the white canvas of nearer vessels, like a delicate veil. There is a
fascination in the motion of these slender schooners, a wondrous grace,
as they glide before a gentle wind, slowly bowing, bending, turning,
with curving canvas just filled with the breeze, and shadows falling
soft from sail to sail. They are all so picturesque, so suggestive,
from the small, tanned spritsail some young islander spreads to flit
to and fro among the rocks and ledges, to the stately column of canvas
that bears the great ship round the world. The variety of their
aspects is endless and ever beautiful, whether you watch them from the
lighthouse-top, dreaming afar on the horizon, or at the water’s edge;
whether they are drowned in the flood of sunshine on the waves, or
glide darkly through the track of the moonlight, or fly toward you full
of promise, wing and wing, like some magnificent bird, or steal away
reddening in the sunset as if to
“Sink with all you love below the verge.”
I know nothing sadder than their aspect in the light of the winter
sunsets, as they vanish in the cold east, blushing for a fleeting
moment, sweetly, faintly, under the last touch of the dropping day.
To a child’s imagination they are all full of charm and of mystery,
freighted with heavenly dreams. “The thoughts of youth are long, long
thoughts,” and the watching of the sails filled the lonely, lovely
summer days of one young Shoaler with joy enough and to spare. How
many pictures linger in my mind,--splendid, stately apparitions of
full-rigged, slender schooners, passing very near early in the breezy
mornings of spring, every inch of canvas in a blaze of white light,
and the whole vessel alive from keel to topmast. And well I remember
on soft May evenings how they came dropping down from Cape Ann, while
the sunset, streaming through low bars of cloud, just touched them with
pale gold, and made them half luminous and altogether lovely; and how
the fog clung in silver strips to the dark, wet sails of vessels lying
becalmed when all the air about was clear and free from mist; how the
mackerel fleet surrounded the islands, five hundred craft sometimes
between the islands and the coast, so that one might almost walk on
shore from deck to deck. It was wonderful to wake on some midsummer
morning and find the sea gray-green, like translucent chrysoprase, and
the somewhat stormy sunrise painting the sails bright flame-color as
they flew before the warm, wild wind that blew strongly from the south.
At night, sometimes, in a glory of moonlight, a vessel passed close
in with all sail set, and only just air enough to fill the canvas,
enough murmur from the full tide to drown the sound of her movement,--a
beautiful ghost stealing softly by, and passing in mysterious light
beyond the glimmering headland out of sight. Here was suggestion enough
for a night full of visions! Then the scudding of sails before a
storm,--how they came rushing in from the far, dim sea-line, racing by
to Portsmouth Harbor, close-reefed, or under darkened mainsail and jib
only, leaping over the long swell, and plunging their sharp bowsprits
into a cloud of snowy spray at every leap! Then when the storm had
spent itself, how beautiful to see them stealing tranquilly forth
from the river’s mouth, flocking seaward again, shining white in the
peaceful morning sunshine! Watching them in all their endless variety,
coming and going, dreaming, drifting, or flying, many a time these
quaint old rhymes occurred to me:--
“Ships, ships, I will descrie you
Amidst the main,
I will come and try you
What you are protecting,
And projecting,
What’s your end and aim?
Some go abroad for merchandise and trading,
Another stays to keep his country from invading,
A third is coming home with rich and wealthy lading.
Halloo! my fancie, whither wilt thou go?”
As the winter is doubly hard, so are the gentler seasons doubly sweet
and delightful, when one is shut out with them, as it were, and forced
to observe all their changes and peculiarities, with so few human
interests to interrupt one’s intercourse with nature. The rainy days
in May at the Isles of Shoals have seemed to me more lovely than the
sunshine in Paradise could be, so charming it was to walk in the warm
showers over our island, and note all the mosses and lichens drenched
and bright with the moisture, thick, sweet buds on the bayberry bushes,
rich green leaves unfolding here and there among the tangled vines,
and bright anemones growing up between. The lovely eyebright glimmers
everywhere. The rain, if it continues for several days, bleaches the
sea-weed about the shores to a lighter and more golden brown, the sea
is gray, and the sky lowers; but all these neutral tints are gentle
and refreshing. The coasters rock lazily on the long swell toward Cape
Ann, dim through low-hanging clouds; clearly the sandpipers call, and
always the song-sparrows freshly surprise you with their outburst
of cheerful music. In the last weeks of May comes a period of balmy
days, with a gentle, incessant southwest wind, the sea a wonderful
gray-blue, with the faint, impalpable haze lying over sails, islands,
sea, and coast. A brooding warmth is everywhere. The sky is cloudless,
but opaque,--a kind of milky effect in the atmosphere, through which
the sun is seen as through smoked glass, and long before it sets one
can bear to look at the crimson ball slow sinking in the rich, red
west; and the moon is like copper, throwing no light on the water. The
islanders call this a “smoky sou’wester.” Now come delicious twilights,
with silence broken only by mysterious murmurs from the waves, and
sweet, full cries from the sandpipers fluttering about their nests
on the margin of the beaches,--tender, happy notes that thrill the
balmy air, and echo softly about the silent, moonlit coves. Sails in
this twilight atmosphere gather the dusk within their folds; if the
warm wind is blowing softly, there is enchantment in the sound of the
lazily-flapping canvas and in the long creak of the mast. A human voice
borne through this breathing wind comes like a waft of music faintly
heard across the water. The mornings now are exquisite, the delicate
flush of the sunrise through this beautiful haze is indescribable. The
island is indeed like
“A precious stone set in the silver sea,”
so freshly green, so flower-strewn and fragrant, so musical with
birds, and with the continual caressing of summer waves. Now and then
a bobolink pays us a flying visit, and, tilting on a blackberry spray,
pours out his intoxicating song; some morning is heard the fairy
bugling of an oriole; a scarlet tanager honors the place with half a
day’s sojourn, to be the wonder of all eyes; but commonly the swallows
hold it in undisputed possession. The air is woven through and through
with the gleam of their burnished wings and their clear, happy cries.
They are so tame, knowing how well they are beloved, that they gather
on the window-sills, twittering and fluttering, gay and graceful,
turning their heads this way and that, eying you askance without a
trace of fear. All day they build their nests about the eaves, nor heed
how loving eyes do watch their charming toil. Walking abroad in these
pleasant evenings, many a little sparrow’s nest one finds low down in
the bayberry-bushes,--smooth, brown cups of woven grass, wherein lie
the five speckled eggs, each full of silent music, each dumb miracle
waiting for the finger of God to wake, to be alive, to drink the
sunshine and the breeze, to fill the air with blissful sound. At the
water’s edge one finds the long ledges covered with barnacles, and from
each rough shell a tiny, brown, filmy hand is thrust out, opening and
shutting in gladness beneath the coming tide, feeling the freshness
of the flowing water. The shore teems with life in manifold forms. As
the darkness gathers, the ripples begin to break in pale flame against
the rocks; if the tide is low enough, it is charming to steal down in
the shadow, and, drawing aside the curtain of coarse sea-weed that
drapes the face of some smooth rock, to write on the surface beneath:
the strange fire follows your finger; and there is your name in weird
flame, all alive, quivering and trembling, and finally fading and
disappearing. In a still pool you drop a stone or touch the water
with your hand: instantly a thousand stars break out and burn and
vanish in a moment! It used to be a pleasant thing to bring a piece of
drift-wood, water-soaked, and shaggy with fine seaweed, up from the
shore, and from some dark corner suddenly sweep my hand across it: a
sheet of white flame followed, startling the beholder.
June is of course the most delightful month here, everything is yet
so fresh; later the hot sun dries and scorches the thin soil, and
partially destroys the little vegetation which finds room upon the
island. But through this month the ground is beautiful with starry,
purple stonewort; like little suns the blossoms of the lion’s-foot
shine in the thinnest of the soil; herb-robert blossoms; the slender
arenaria steals up among the bushes, lifting a little white flower
to the sun; here and there the sorrel lies in crimson stains; in wet
places sturdy clumps of fern unroll their golden green with splendid
vigor of growth; sundew and partridge-berry creep at their feet;
and from the swamp the rushes rise in ranks, like a faint, green
vapor, slowly, day by day. The few wild-cherry bushes have each its
inevitable caterpillars’ nest; one can but wonder how caterpillars and
canker-worms find their way across the water. The presence of green
snakes on these rocks may be explained by their having been found
coiled on a piece of drift-wood many miles out at sea. Bees find their
way out from the land in companies, seeking the white clover-blossoms
that rise in cool, creamy, fragrant globes through the dark leaves
and grass. The clover here is peculiarly rich. Many varieties of
butterflies abound, the handsome moth of the American silkworm among
them. One night in June, at sunset, we were kindling the lamps in the
lighthouse, and because it was so mild and still outside, the little
iron door of the lantern was left open. No breeze came in to stir
the flame that quivered in the centre of each shining reflector, but
presently glided through the door the pale-green, exquisite Luna moth,
with its wonderful crescents, its lines of velvet brown, and long under
wings drawn out like the tail of a swallow. It sailed slowly round and
round the dome above the lamps at first, but soon became agitated, and
would have dashed itself against the flames but that I caught it. What
a marvel it was! I never dreamed of the existence of so beautiful a
creature. Titania herself could not have been more interesting to me.
In the quiet little coves troops of butterflies are often seen,
anchored for the night, clinging to the thistle-blossoms to be safe
from assailing winds. Crickets are never heard here till after the 1st
of August. On the mainland they begin, about the 28th of May, a sad
and gentle autumnal undertone, which from that time accompanies the
jubilant chorus of summer in a gradual _crescendo_, till finally the
days pass on to no other music save their sweet, melancholy chirrup.
In August comes the ruby-throated humming-bird, and several pairs
flutter about the little gardens for weeks. By the 1st of July the wild
roses blossom, and every bit of swampy ground is alive with the waving
flags of the iris, each flower of which is full of exquisite variety
of tint and shade of gold and violet. All over the island patches of
it diversify the surface, set like amethysts in the rich greens and
browns of turf and mossy spaces. Through the tangle of leaves and
grasses the spikes of golden-rod make their way upward slowly day by
day, to be ready at the first beckoning of Autumn’s finger to light
their torches and join the fair procession; the green hollows are
filled with blossoming elder, white as a lake of milk; the pimpernel is
awake; and the heavy, stout stalks of the mulleins uprear their woolly
buds, that soon will break into squares of pallid gold. The world is at
high tide of delight. Along the coast-line the mirage races in flowing
undulations of heat, changing the hill ranges into a solid wall, to
dissolve them, and again reunite them into clusters of gigantic towers
and battlements; trees, spires, chimneys, lighthouses become roofs and
minarets and domes of some stately city of the clouds, and these melt
in their turn, and the whole coast shrinks away to the merest line
on the horizon immeasurably removed. Each of these changes, and the
various aspects of their little world, are of inestimable value to the
lonely children living always in that solitude. Nothing is too slight
to be precious: the flashing of an oar-blade in the morning light;
the twinkling of a gull’s wings afar off, like a star in the yellow
sunshine of the drowsy summer afternoon; the water-spout waltzing
away before the wild wind that cleaves the sea from the advancing
thunder-cloud; the distant showers that march about the horizon,
trailing their dusky fringes of falling rain over sea and land; every
phase of the great thunder-storms that make glorious the weeks of
July and August, from the first floating film of cloud that rises in
the sky till the scattered fragments of the storm stream eastward to
form a background for the rainbow,--all these things are of the utmost
importance to dwellers at the Isles of Shoals. There is something
especially delightful in the perfumes which stream across the sea after
showers, like a heavenly greeting from the land: scents of hay and of
clover, spice of pine woods, balm of flowers come floating over the
cool waves on the wings of the west wind, and touch one like a breath
from Paradise. Few sounds from the shore reach the islands; the booming
of guns is audible, and sometimes, when the wind is west, the air is
pierced with distant car-whistles, so very remote, however, that they
are hardly to be recognized except by a practised ear.
* * * * *
There is a superstition among the islanders that Philip Babb, or
some evil-minded descendant of his, still haunts Appledore; and no
consideration would induce the more timid to walk alone after dark
over a certain shingly beach on that island, at the top of a cove
bearing Babb’s name,--for there the uneasy spirit is oftenest seen. He
is supposed to have been so desperately wicked when alive that there is
no rest for him in his grave. His dress is a coarse, striped butcher’s
frock, with a leather belt, to which is attached a sheath containing
a ghostly knife, sharp and glittering, which it is his delight to
brandish in the face of terrified humanity. One of the Shoalers is
perfectly certain that he and Babb have met, and he shudders with real
horror, recalling the meeting. This is his story. It was after sunset
(of course), and he was coming round the corner of a work-shop, when
he saw a wild and dreadful figure advancing toward him; his first
thought was that some one wished to make him the victim of a practical
joke, and he called out something to the effect that he “wasn’t
afraid”; but the thing came near with ghastly face and hollow eyes,
and, assuming a fiendish expression, took out the knife from its belt
and flourished it in the face of the Shoaler, who fled to the house
and entered breathless, calling for the person who he supposed had
tried to frighten him. That person was quietly eating his supper; and
when the poor fellow saw him he was so much agitated that he nearly
fainted, and his belief in Babb was fixed more firmly than ever. One
spring night some one was sitting on the broad piazza at sunset; it
was calm and mild; the sea murmured a little; birds twittered softly;
there was hardly a waft of wind in the still atmosphere. Glancing
toward Babb’s Cove, he saw a figure slowly crossing the shingle to
the path which led to the house. After watching it a moment he called
to it, but there was no reply; again he called, still no answer; but
the dark figure came slowly on; and then he reflected that he had
heard no step on the loose shingle that was wont to give back every
footfall, and, somewhat puzzled, he slowly descended the steps of the
piazza and went to meet it. It was not so dark but that he could see
the face and recognize the butcher’s frock and leather belt of Babb,
but he was not prepared for the devilish expression of malice in that
hollow face, and, spite of his prosaic turn of mind, he was chilled to
the marrow at the sight. The white stripes in the frock gleamed like
phosphorescent light, so did the awful eyes. Again he called aloud,
“Who are you? What do you want?” and still advanced, when suddenly the
shape grew indistinct, first thick and cloudy, then thin, dissolving
quite away, and, much amazed, he turned and went back to the house,
perplexed and thoroughly dissatisfied. These tales I tell as they were
told to me. I never saw Babb, nor ever could, I think. The whole Babb
family are buried in the valley of Appledore where the houses stand,
and till this year a bowling-alley stood upon the spot, and all the
balls rolled over the bones of all the Babbs; that may have been one
reason why the head of the family was so restless; since the last
equinoctial gale blew the building down, perhaps he may rest more
peacefully. Babb’s is, I believe, the only real ghost that haunts the
islands; though in the loft at the parsonage on Star (a mere creep-hole
under the eaves, unattainable by any steps or ladder) there is, in
windy weather, the most extraordinary combination of sounds, as if
two bluff old fellows were swearing at each other, gruffly, harshly,
continually, with a perseverance worthy of a better cause. Really, it
is a most disagreeable racket! A lean, brown, hollow-eyed old woman
from Star used to tell how her daughter-in-law died, in a way that took
the color out of childish cheeks to hear; for the dying woman thought
the ghosts were scratching for her outside, against the house. “‘Ma’y
Hahner’” (Mary Hannah), “she said to me, a whisperin’, says she, ‘Who’s
that scratching, tearing the house down underneath the window?’ ‘No,
it ain’t nothin’,’ says I; ‘Ma’y Hahner, there ain’t nobody a tearin’
the house down underneath the winder.’ ‘Yes, yes, there is,’ says she,
‘there is! I hear ’em scratching, scratching, tearing the house down
underneath the winder!’ And then I know’d Ma’y Hahner was goin’ to die,
and so she did afore mornin’.”
There is a superstition here and along the coast to this effect. A
man gathering drift-wood or whatever it may be, sees a spade stuck
in the ground as if inviting him to dig. He isn’t quite ready, goes
and empties his basket first, then comes back to investigate, and lo!
there’s nothing there, and he is tormented the rest of his life with
the thought that probably untold wealth lay beneath that spade, which
he might have possessed had he only been wise enough to seize the
treasure when it offered itself. A certain man named William Mace,
living at Star, long, long ago, swore that he had had this experience;
and there’s a dim tradition that another person, seeing the spade,
passed by about his business, but hastening back, arrived just in time
to see the last of the sinking tool, and to perceive also a golden
flat-iron disappearing into the earth. This he seized, but no human
power could extricate it from the ground, and he was forced to let go
his hold and see it sink out of his longing ken.
Some young people, camping on the south side of Appledore, one summer,
among the ancient graves, dug up a skeleton; the bones crumbled to
dust, but the skull remained intact, and I kept it for a long time.
The Shoalers shook their heads. “Hog Island would have no ‘luck’ while
that skull remained above ground.” It had lain so long in the earth
that it was no more repulsive than a bit of stone, yet a nameless dread
invested it. At last I took it in my hands and pored over it till the
shudder passed away forever, and then I was never weary of studying
it. Sitting by the driftwood blaze late into the still autumn nights
alone at my desk, it kept me company,--a vase of brilliant flowers on
one side, the skull on the other, and the shaded lamp between, equally
lighting both. A curious head it was, thick as an Ethiop’s, with no
space above the eyes, high above the ears, and heavy behind them. But
O, those hollows where the eyes once looked out, beholding the same sea
and sky we see to-day! Those great, melancholy, empty hollows,--what
sort of creature gazed from them? Cunning and malice, anger and hate,
may have burned within them in sullen flame; who shall say if any
beauty ever illumined them? If hate smouldered here, did love ever look
out and transfigure the poor, dull face? did any spark from the far
heaven even brighten it? any touch of lofty thought or aspiration turn
the clay to fire? And when, so many years ago, this being glided away
from behind these awful windows and left them empty for ever and ever,
did he find what in his life here he could not have possessed, with
this head, which he did not make, and therefore was not responsible
for? Many and many a question I put silently to the silent casket which
had held a human soul; there was no sound to answer me save only the
great, gentle whisper of the sea without the windows, and now and then
a sigh from the autumn wind. There came to me a sense of the pathos of
the infinite patience of humanity, waiting so helplessly and blindly
for the unravelling of the riddle that has troubled every thoughtful
soul since the beginning of time. Little roots of plants were clasped
about the temples. Behind the right ear were three indentations, as if
made by some sharp instrument, suggesting foul play. An Indian tomahawk
might have made those marks, or a pirate’s cutlass: who can say? What
matter is it now? I kept the relic for months, till it crumbled so fast
when I daily dusted it that I feared it would disappear entirely; so I
carried it quietly back and laid it in the grave from which it had been
taken, wondering, as I drew the shallow earth over it, who had stood
round about when it was buried for the first time, centuries ago; what
manner of people, and were they afraid or sorry. But there was no voice
to answer me.