Edward R. Shaw

“ The long swaths they were now mowing lay in direction to and from the ocean, and the place where the bouts ended and the indispensable jug stood in readiness, chanced to be so situated with reference to the gap between the hills that it afforded a view directly out upon the sea. The nature of the fog made this view more or less indistinct, at times shutting it entirely out of sight. Here the wind would bank up the fog, twist it into fantastic shapes, and blow them all away, only to summon more of the pliant medium and heap it up again into more grotesque masses. ”

“ These sand hills are the most striking features of the Beach. The biggest of them are not more than sixty feet high, yet so hard a feat is it to climb to the top, and so extended is the view below you—on one side the wide Bay, on the other, the 13 ocean stretching its restless surface to the horizon—that you feel yourself upon an elevation tenfold as high. ”

“ I heard nothing out of the usual course of nature till I got within three-quarters of a mile of the half-way hut. Then I heard not only the moaning, but other noises not human, and a clapping or beating as with two flat sticks. All this was confined to one spot, and I could locate that spot exactly: in a rather deep hollow, with three hills butting up around. The wind from some cause always drew down into that hollow and kept its whole surface smooth, not a spear or root of grass there, and as round as the inside of a cup. ”

“ Through these hills the wind makes a great galloping, whirling out deep bowl-shape hollows among them, and piling the shifting sand upon their summits. Now and then you will notice a hill with its shoulder knocked off by the wind, and a ton of sand gone no one can tell where. In every storm their contour changes, and yet their general formation is so similar at all times that the change is seldom thought of. ”

“ In such a sea there is no launching yawl or surf-boat, and no coming ashore.
When the tide is on the right moon and the wind has blown a gale from the southeast, the strand is entirely submerged, and people upon the main shore three miles away can see the surf breaking over the Beach hills.
Such a riot of sea and wind strews the whole extent of beach with whatever has been lost or thrown overboard, or torn out of sunken ships. Many a man has made a good week’s work in a single day by what 15 he has found while walking along the Beach when the surf was down. ”

“ There was the sail to and fro, the breeze from the sea in its first freshness, the beat of the surf, the wide view on every side, the visit to the ocean at night, and often a race with the slow-creeping tide to determine whether the mowers should lay their stint, or the water usurp their place.
The three mowers had made an early start and were in good season, but the sight of others at work roused their anticipations of the day’s labor, and Layn suggested, “Let’s give our scythes a thorer goin’ over. We’ll save time by it.” ”

“ Anyone who went upon the Bay at all was likely to land at the Beach. Once there, it was a natural impulse to go across and walk along the ocean side; for, at that time, early in 16 the thirties, it was widely believed that the sea had wealth, and often threw it up upon the shore. Never, however, was it in the least surmised by the Captain’s neighbors that these solitary excursions had woven themselves in as a part of the texture of his life. ”

“ The daylight was now fast flooding ocean and Beach and Bay. What they were to do must be done quickly.
Captain Ben gathered his followers close in under the bank, while he climbed to the top of the sand ridge and peered over. He saw distinctly the masts of the schooner, but not the hull, as the second ridge of hills cut off his view. He slipped back a few yards, and directed the men to range themselves abreast and crawl over the hill into the next valley or, rather, depression between the surf hills and the middle beach range. ”

“ In the tavern, among groups of men collected on shore from wind-bound vessels, at gatherings around the cabin fire, and in those small craft that were constantly going from one part of the bay to another, not only these tales, but others, irrevocably lost, were elaborated and made current in days homely and toilsome yet invested with an atmosphere of romance. ”

“ As I came down to the strand suddenly I caught sight of something coming toward me dripping wet. The strength went out of my legs as quick as lightning, and my knees gave way. I nerved myself up at once, and there was need of it, too, for a voice—a human voice—called to me for help. It was a sailor who had just crawled up out of the surf. Instinctively I looked off shore and saw a vessel on the outer bar. She was not there an hour back, when I passed by.
The sailor sank down exhausted after he called to me. I helped him into the hut and blew up the fire.
“Are there any others?” I asked. ”

“ Two buccaneers, Tom Knight and Jack Sloane, gained the shore. Others sank soon, while yet others, quite exhausted, might have been rescued. But 133 treachery, calculating its chance, stepped in and did foul work. Then what horrible exertion went on all that night! What hot search was kept up for lifeless forms as the sea tossed them up! How, when discovered, were they pulled out of the edge of the surf, and clothing rifled! And then, to cover it all, their bodies were dragged to a hollow among the hills, and there buried. ”

“ All along they had feared the wind would fail them when well over under the Beach. But it continued to blow; and in as good season as the mowers had hoped, they reached the meadows. Josh stood forward, anchor in hand, and jumping ashore, walked the full length of the cable and planted the anchor deep in the soft meadow soil. The old sail was quickly furled, and the three mowers, with scythes and traps, set out for Arter’s lot. Raner led the way, carrying, besides his scythe, a rake and hammer and wedges to hang anew the scythes, if need were. ”

“ A fog, as everybody knows, plays all sorts of tricks with the judgment. A man may drive over a road a hundred times and think himself acquainted with every turn and hollow, with every clump of trees, with every bank, rock, or bunch of shrubbery by the roadside ”

“ So anxious were they to get across, that the Beach seemed much wider than they had ever imagined. At last they reached the ridge 117 of hills that lie on the inner side of the surf strand, shutting out all view of the ocean, and toiled to the top. The hills seemed very steep and high to them, for in all their lives they had never been away from the low and level south side of the Island.
Reaching the top, that far and mighty prospect of the great deep burst upon them. ”

“ It moved down the 52 Beach as I walked, just abreast of me apparently, but over behind the hills, considerably farther, however, toward the bayside when I passed any low spot of beach. When within half a mile of the station, it was gone. I noticed instantly when it ceased.
An experience of this kind disturbs a man’s soul, and the more he fights it the greater trouble it becomes and the more uneasiness it gives him. But I said nothing about it at the station.
The thick weather continued. A seething, boiling surf was running, showing that there had been a big storm off shore. ”

“ No man watches this Beach closer, and nobody knows I’m watchin’ it, either. It’ll come, too, one of these days! If a man’s determined enough and only holds on long enough, what he’s desirin’ and hopin’ for is sure to come round, else he wouldn’t feel so sure about it all the time all through him. It’ll come, it’s sure to come, and then I’ll build my vessel.”
This had been the Captain’s theory. He had held on. Never in the least had he slackened hope.
During the storm the tide had run high, surging up and washing away the foot of the sand hills. ”

“ But when the youth had grown towards manhood, and had forgotten the foolish fears and apprehensions of boyhood, when he was doing what he could to make his way in life—sometimes a laborer on farms, sometimes a boatman on the Bay—he heard, at casual times and places, so many allusions and fragmentary accounts of the buccaneers whose bodies lay buried westward of the Old House, that he was led to make full inquiry, and to get at the truth as near as might be. ”

“ When a fire flashed up at night, part of the crew would row across the bay, heading directly for the fire. After they had put the supplies in their boat and were ready to return, they would throw sand on the fire and put it out. Soon after it disappeared a fire would blaze up on the Beach to guide them back. In that way Fire Place got its old name. That was a name that had something behind it and never ought to have been changed.
This crew had been expecting for three days the signal fire. They were getting short of supplies. People didn’t get around lively in those times, you know. ”

“ The morning wore on, and it seemed to Alibee that noon would never come. Every stroke went against his will. At one time he was on the point of deserting, and leaving Raner and Layn there to drive each other; but seeing how dense the fog was, 82 and remembering he had no other way of getting off the Beach than to walk three or four miles east to the groups of mowers they had passed in the morning, and fearing that he might get lost should he attempt this—a thought which made him shudder—he held himself in control. ”

“ Lanterns are of no account on that Beach. No lantern will burn when a high wind is blowing sand before it. They choke up and go out. And as about the only time when they would be of use is when they won’t burn, they’re not carried. Then, after all, it’s no place for them. They’ll do round the barnyard, but the coast is 51 no place for a light, down almost on the surf’s edge, bobbing and moving along in the darkness. ”

“ The sand on this Beach is all the time a changin’. What are hollows now ’ill be hills in a few years. Sea and rain and wind are all the time at work. The wind, though, puts in the most time. How soon it ’ill sweep out a hole and carry the sand up the side of a hill anybody knows who has been on this Beach in a blow. It handles sand in about the same way it drifts snow.
“No, I’ll never dig for treasure, and I’ve no belief in mineral rods. Too many fools have used ’em. Watch Hill has all been dug around ag’in and ag’in, and never anyone found a shillin’ for all their potterin’. ”

“ The hollows are deeper and the bends of the road more abrupt, the clump of trees has shifted its position or has entirely disappeared, and every rock and bunch of shrubbery becomes a strange object. If he begins to doubt, his judgment is completely upset, and he concludes he has taken the wrong road. ”

“ But although a matter-of-fact wife, she had, it must be confessed, noticed more closely than her neighbors the effect a storm had upon her husband; and she had learned to put off until such a time those various little requests about the house, which appear in a man’s eyes so great a matter to get about, and which he usually puts off and shirks with an unaccountable dread. ”

“ Strange things happen on that Beach and have happened. My experience was no new one, but it takes hold of a man, nevertheless, and he can’t shake it off for months. Ever since white men frequented that Beach, some one at intervals has undergone the same foreboding experience.
In the early part of the last century a whaling crew, half Indians, had their hut east of Quanch. They used to land and come off at the point there, where the water is deep, called Whale House Point till this day. From the days of the earliest settlement, whaling crews used to go on the Beach. ”

“ He could just make out dimly, a mile westward, the masts and hull of the stranded schooner. He backed down from the sand-hill and reported what he had seen.
“About a mile to west’ard, an’ nobody stirrin’ as I can make out. See that your guns are all well primed an’ dry. Keep in close to the hills till we get abreast the spot. And now, forward!”
There were two or three places in the hills in that mile, where the ocean had broken through and poured its waters over low spots of beach into the Bay. Cautiously the men skulked by these openings. ”

“ I can’t see any use of patrolling that Beach in good weather and wearing the crew out. To my thinking all that is necessary on bright days or on clear starlight and moonlight 49 nights is to keep a man on the lookout with a good glass beside him, and so save the crew; for there come times when the rescuing of life depends upon the reserve strength of the men. Yes, there come emergencies on that coast when power of endurance is the important, the decisive thing. ”