The tide was setting
in, and plenty of small fish were coming with it, unconscious of
the silver flashing of the great birds overhead and the quickness
of their fierce beaks. The sea was full of life and spirit, the
tops of the waves flew back as if they were winged like the gulls
themselves, and like them had the freedom of the wind. Out in the
main channel we passed a bent-shouldered old fisherman bound for
the evening round among his lobster traps. He was toiling along
with short oars, and the dory tossed and sank and tossed again with
the steamer's waves. I saw that it was old Elijah Tilley, and
though we had so long been strangers we had come to be warm
friends, and I wished that he had waited for one of his mates, it
was such hard work to row along shore through rough seas and tend
the traps alone. As we passed I waved my hand and tried to call to
him, and he looked up and answered my farewells by a solemn nod.
The little town, with the tall masts of its disabled schooners in
the inner bay, stood high above the flat sea for a few minutes then
it sank back into the uniformity of the coast, and became
indistinguishable from the other towns that looked as if they were
crumbled on the furzy-green stoniness of the shore.
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