Produced by Barbara Tozier, David T. Jones, Bill Tozier
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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CULM ROCK,
The Story of a Year:
WHAT IT BROUGHT AND WHAT IT TAUGHT.
BY
GLANCE GAYLORD.
BOSTON:
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by
HENRY HOYT,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
INNES AND NILES,
Stereotypers and Printers,
37 Cornhill, Boston.
CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
I.--The Old Stone House 5
II.--Letters 21
III.--On the "White Gull" 37
IV.--Disappointments 53
V.--The First Evening 71
VI.--Culm Sights 89
VII.--How the Month was spent 107
VIII.--Noll's Decision 124
IX.--Dirk's Trouble 142
X.--In the Sea 159
XI.--Dirk's Treasure 177
XII.--Firelight Talk 195
XIII.--The Winter's Waning 219
XIV.--Ned Thorn 236
XV.--Plans 254
XVI.--The Work Begun 272
XVII.--The Work Progressing 288
XVIII.--The Work Finished 304
XIX.--A Happy Walk 320
XX.--New Thoughts and New Plans 336
XXI.--In Peril of the Sea 353
XXII.--Weary Watching 367
XXIII.--Waiting 384
XXIV.--Days of Calm 400
XXV.--Out of the Sea 416
[Transcriber's Note: In this e-text, italics have been denoted by
enclosing the affected text in underscores]
CULM ROCK.
CHAPTER I.
THE OLD STONE HOUSE.
Culm Rock was a wild place. You might search the coast for miles and
not find another bit of nature so bare and rent and ragged as this. So
fiercely had the storms driven over it, so wildly had the wind and
waves beat, that the few cedars which once flourished as its only bit
of greenness were long ago dead, and now held up only bleached and
ragged hands. Jutting out into the sea, the surf rolled and thundered
along its jagged shore of rock and sand, and was never silent. It
would have been an island but for the narrow strips of sand, heaped
high and ridgelike, which bound it to the main land; and this slender
bridge, it often seemed, would be torn away by the ravenous sea which
gnawed and engulfed great tracts at once, and yet heaped it higher and
broader in the next storm. Beyond, on the firm and unyielding land,
the pine woods stood up, vast, dim, and silent, stretching away into
the interior. So, with the great dark barrier of forest behind and the
waste of shining sea in front, Culm Rock seemed shut out from all the
rest of the world. True, sails flitted along the horizon, and the
smoke of foreign-bound steamers trailed against the sky, giving token
of the great world's life and stir; and there were Skipper Ben and the
"White Gull" who touched at the little wharf at Culm every week; but
for these, the people--for there were people who dwelt here--might
have lived in another sphere for aught they knew or were conscious of
what was transpiring in the wonderful land which lay beyond the
stretch of sea, and between which and themselves the "White Gull" was
the only means of communication.
Do you wonder that people could spend their lives here, die, and never
have seen the world without? There were only a dozen houses,--poor,
racked, weather-beaten things, nestled on a bit of sand on a far
corner of Culm,--inhabited by fishermen and their families. They were
rough, hardy folk, but ignorant, and with only ambition enough to get
their living out of the great sea, and a poor and scanty enough living
at that. Skipper Ben brought them molasses and calicoes down in the
"White Gull," and took their fish in exchange; and if he told them a
bit of news from the great city and the greater world, it was all very
well. If he failed to do this, it was all very well too.
Back of the fisher huts, the rocks rose high and dark, and quite hid
the pine woods and the isthmus of yellow sand, and everything that
could make Culm at all cheery or pleasant. This eminence was Wind
Cliff, and served as a landmark for all the sailors whose path lay
along the coast. Around this the gulls were alway flitting and
screaming, and their nests were everywhere in the crevices of the
rocks. Bald and gray it rose, scarred and rent with storms and age,
and so steep as to be almost inaccessible. It fronted the north-west,
and from its sharp tip the rock sloped south to the sea, and held in
one of its great hollows down by the shore a house--such a house as
you would not have looked for at Culm--with walls of stone and tall,
ancient chimneys and deep-set windows, like eyes looking forever at
the sea.
It was so dark and weather-beaten that at first sight you might almost
fancy it to be but some quaint, odd shape which the rocks had taken,
by dint of the stress of winds and waves beating upon them for long
ages. But a house it was, and made by human hands, and human beings
dwelt in it. At night the red light from its windows streamed out upon
the water, and in many a dark and tempestuous watch had Skipper Ben
guided the "White Gull" into port through the friendly gleaming of
this beacon. For a long period of years the old house had stood empty
and tenantless, the windows and doors broken and gone, the wind
sweeping through and the rain beating in, and everything but the stout
walls and chimneys a ruin. The superstitious fishermen would not
inhabit it, and told tales of smugglers and pirates who made it their
haunt, with other fanciful stories which always seem to linger about
the sea, and in which there was not the faintest shadow of truth.
Desolate and neglected, it stood there year after year, till, one day,
Skipper Ben brought down carpenters and masons on the "White Gull,"
and straightway they went at work upon the old house. Doors went up,
windows went in, a piazza pushed itself out towards the sea-front,
and there was great bustle and activity about it for weeks. Then the
laborers went away, and when the skipper came again, he brought,
instead of groceries and store-cloth, a great quantity of furniture,
the like of which the poor people at Culm Rock had never seen, and
with the furniture came the master of the new house--a sorrowful,
bowed man--and his housekeeper, a thin, wrinkled negro woman.
Then the smoke curled out of the great stone chimneys once more, the
light streamed from the windows at night, and the fishermen and
sailors rejoiced that at last the old house had found a tenant and no
longer yawned bare and empty. The "White Gull" came more than once
with a cargo for the master of the stone house, who, the skipper told
the Culm folk, "was a mighty rich man, but the down-heartedest chap
he'd ever cast eyes on. Why, man, he just sot lookin' over the rail
the best part o' the way down, with his eyes in the water, and said no
more nor a stone. What ye think? Now lookee here, men, let me give ye
a bit o' advice. Don't ye go to pesterin' him with yer talk and yer
questions; fur he's diff'rent make 'an I be, an' 'twon't do. Let him
alone, an' keep yer own side o' the Rock."
The skipper's word was looked upon with respect by all the fish-folk,
and they heeded his advice. So, in consequence, the owner of the stone
mansion was undisturbed, and lived in the greatest seclusion. He never
came within the limits of the little village, and whenever he was
seen, it was only as pacing slowly along the shore. He passed the
fishermen as they were hanging up their seines in the sun without
heeding them, or acknowledging their respectful bows. The old black
housekeeper came down to the village sometimes after fish or gulls'
eggs, but went her way without satisfying the eager questions with
which the women plied her. So one year passed away, then a second, and
the master of the stone house was still as much a mystery to the poor
fishers as ever. He rarely walked upon the sand, gave them not a look
if ever they chanced to meet, and living, apparently, for no one but
himself, took not the slightest interest in their welfare, cared
naught for wreck or disaster on the shore, and seemed always stern and
sorrowful.
No company ever came down on the "White Gull" to visit this strange
and silent man, and he had no friends, apparently. Skipper Ben
brought stores for him occasionally, and sometimes a letter; but this
last event was a rare one, and the man seemed to have little more
communication with the great world out of which he had come than did
the humble Culm fishermen. With winds and storms, the third year
rolled around, and the master of the old house was still as much of a
recluse as ever; but the Culm people had ceased to regard him with any
interest, and the man led a most solitary life, hardly seeing a human
being, other than his housekeeper, from month to month. Do you wonder
what could make him so stern and sad? Here is his story:--
One sweet and golden summer day, a man stood by the bedside of his
wife,--he, crushed and heart-broken; she, faint and dying, but calm
and loving and comforting. She held his hand, and whispered brokenly
such words as she could only hope to comfort him with; and the last
faint whisper which trembled on her lips was, "Oh, Richard, don't
fail--don't fail to--to find Him and cling to Him, and come--come
up--too." And with that she was dead. And the man left the bedside,
and went out into the summer fields, where the birds were flitting and
the bees droning and the wide earth seemed brimming with life and joy,
and prayed that he might die too, since she was gone. But the birds
sang on as joyously as ever, and the sun shone no less brightly
because of the sorrow in the earth, and after his first tears were
shed, his heart began to grow hard and bitter, and he put away the
dying whisper, and went back to the dear dead face, cold and stern.
His friends came to console him, but he would not listen, and after it
was all over, and the gentle face hidden forever under the brown
earth, he began to think of fleeing to some spot where he might find
rest and quietness, and hide himself from all thoughts of the dear one
who had left him, smothering his sorrow, and living as if she had not
been. "I have been robbed," he said, bitterly; "all my happiness has
been stolen from me. I can't seek Him; I will not. Oh, if there is a
kind and merciful God, why has he stricken me? why has he taken all
the joy out of my life? why has he left me without a comforter in the
world?" So, without seeking for a Comforter, without striving to "find
Him," as the dear voice had whispered, he turned away and strove to
crush out the love and the tender memories which haunted his heart,
and most of all that dying whisper which said, "Don't fail--don't fail
to find _Him_."
Grown suddenly stern and morose, Richard Trafford looked about him for
a refuge where he might flee from all society, and most of all from
the spot where _her_ presence seemed yet to linger. He discovered wild
and solitary Culm Rock, and purchased the old stone house. Here, he
thought, with the everlasting sound of the sea in his ears, with all
the wildness and barrenness about him, and apart from the rest of
mankind, he would bury himself, and forget all the bright and happy
days which had passed. He left his friends without giving them any
clew to his whereabouts, and with faithful old Hagar, who persisted in
following him, took up his abode by the sea. But do you think his
sorrow lessened? Do you think he found peace and happiness again? He
carried his hard and bitter heart with him, and there was no happiness
to be found by the sea. One year after another rolled away until the
three were gone, and still he was wandering along his own thorny path,
bowed with his sorrow, sighing and lamenting for the bright form which
had left him, and still deaf to its whisper, "Find _Him_, and come up
too." He walked on the sands, lonely and desolate; he paced about the
great rooms of the stone house, oppressed and heavy-hearted; he shut
himself up in his library and pored over books in vain. His sorrow
clung to him, followed him everywhere; his heart was stubborn and
bitter and rebellious. Perhaps he despaired of ever losing the
burden, for one day he brought out a portrait, wrapped and swathed
with great care, and, tearing all the veilings off, gazed once more on
the sainted face which he had not looked upon for three long and heavy
years. He did not hide it again, but hung it upon his library wall,
where the tender face and calm and loving eyes looked down and almost
melted him to tears.
He wondered how he could have kept it veiled and hidden so long. He
wondered if those three years had not been spent in vain, unless it
were to learn that he could not crush out his sweet memories if he
tried.
He sank down into his chair as he thought of this, and going back over
the three past dreary years, remembered what a weary blank they were,
thought, with a heavy sigh, what a shipwreck his life had been, and
how he was now floating about without rudder or compass or anchor,
merely a drifting wreck. And as he sits there in the sunshine which
streams through the wide, high old window, we will see him for the
first time.