Silver Shoal Light/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
"THE SAILS OF ARGO"
"FOGGER, I do believe that Joan hasn't been up to the Light yet," said Garth. "Let's go before lunch."
"That's true; she hasn't," said Jim. "Very well, then. This way, ladies and gentlemen."
He opened a small door which led from the living-room, and they went through a short stone passage where all the rubber-boots and slickers and fishing-tackle and oars and duck hats were kept. Then they entered the service-room. Here were the extra lamps, burnished till they winked, and dozens of shining chimneys ranged in neat racks.
"Each one has a different note," said Jim. "I used to be able to play tunes on them, but I think some of them have changed places since then."
Nevertheless, he picked up a little stick and, tapping first one chimney and then another with flying fingers, achieved a tinkling tune that sounded a little like "My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean."
"It would make quite a good vaudeville turn," said Jim, "except that so many lamp-chimneys would be awkward to carry about. And your high C or your middle G might break just when you needed it."
"But I think it's amazing," said Joan. "They really have a wonderfully sweet tone."
At the foot of the spiral staircase leading out of the service-room Jim set Garth upon his shoulder and went on up. It was not a high light-tower, yet they climbed round and round until Joan was almost dizzy before they reached the last short ladder. She found, then, that she stood in the lantern—an octagonal glass room, with the lamp itself in the center. Pemberley drew the curtains away from the great lens and exhibited to Joan what he called the "internal workings" of the Light. He explained it all very carefully, showing her the beautiful intricacy of the layers of cut and polished glass. But when he began talking of Fresnel lenses and the dioptric system, Joan shook her head.
"It's perfectly simple," Jim insisted. "Don't you see that if you had a candle—or even a lamp as big as this one—shut up in a glass case, the light wouldn't do much good? Most of it would be wasted on things very near the lighthouse, instead of getting out to the horizon."
"Oh, it's magnified, of course," said Joan; "I do know that."
"More than magnified," Jim corrected. "You see, you must concentrate the rays and throw them as far out to sea as possible, if they're to be of any use. Well, here's a cylindrical lens, with the lamp in the middle; that lens refracts,—bends all the rays that go through it so that they shoot straight away from the lantern."
"Oh, I see," Joan said.
"But," pursued Jim, "how about all the rays that get outside the cylinder at the top and bottom? They can't be wasted, lighting up the floor and ceiling!"
Joan gave up the solution.
"Well, behold! Rings of separate prisms"—he indicated them—"above and below the central refractor; bigger rings nearest the lens, smaller ones farthest away. The three surfaces of each prism, combined, twist the ray, reflect it brilliantly, and finally send it straight out to sea, horizontal and parallel with all the rest. Not a glimmer lost. Hey, presto! There you are! One little kerosene lamp turned into a regular beacon." He began sliding the curtains across the sides of the lantern. "Of course," he added, "it's another story,—the system by which they're built to direct the light in certain ways, according to the sort of place the lighthouse is in. But it's very interesting. I'd studied it up a bit before I came out here; which is one reason why I wanted to come. And also," said Jim, "one reason why they took me, I suppose."
He showed Joan the thermostat, which rang a bell below and warned him when the lamp burned too low or too high. Then they stepped out upon the little iron balcony around the tower. There Jim became eager and eloquent, pointing out landmarks up and down the coast. Behind them the surf boomed on the Reef; below, on the boat-landing, Elspeth shaded her eyes and looked up at them.
"There's Bird Rock," said Jim, "and Trasket Rock, and the Breakneck beyond. You can just see the tower of the Coast Guard Station nearly three miles down the beach. See? Over that highest dune. And if you'll turn around,—you can't see Quimpaug itself, because of the Point,—you'll see the Pettasantuck going out."
"I don't want to see the Pettasantuck," said Joan. "It makes me think of town."
"Then look at Spain, like Garth," said Jim.
"Spain?" said Joan.
"There's absolutely nothing between us and Spain," Jim said, "but a deal of water."
"If you kept a perfickly straight course, you'd reach it, wouldn't you, Fogger?" murmured Garth, who was leaning on the railing, his father's steadying arm across his shoulders.
"You would," said Pemberley, "bearing a bit east by south, perhaps, and barring pirates and submarines."
"What would you do, Fogger, if a submarine suddenly popped up beside the Light and said, 'Up with your hands!'?"
"First," said Jim, "I'd say, 'Shoo!' and then I'd put a sausage on a blackfish line and see if I couldn't catch the thing, and if that didn't work, I'd run it down with the Ailouros."
"Fogger! You couldn't!" said Garth reproachfully. "It would torpedo you to bits."
"Don't you worry about submarines, you matter-of-fact old sea-urchin, you! Look there, Miss Kirkland, at the big fog-bank lurking outside. It'll be in on us in no time. I'll have to start up the bell."
As they turned to go down, Joan looked back and shivered a little as she gazed at the steadily creeping line of gray.
The fog, which had been rolling in thickly during lunch-time, now folded the lighthouse with a cold silent whiteness. It seemed like an irresistible invading force, creeping stealthily toward the land. The fog-bell had long since begun to toll its warning, presaging the relentless advance. The sound was solemn and very lonely, grand even in its monotony; it pervaded everything with a mellow reverberation. Joan marveled to find how soon she became used to the ever-repeated note.
Somewhere a tug bellowed hoarsely. Garth left the window where he had been standing.
"Oh, come out!" he cried. "Out into it, Joan!"
"But it's so clammy," she objected.
"It won't hurt you; nothing hurts you out here," he said. "I'll get you a sweater, if you're cold."
He brought it from the lamp-room passage and came back to her. He wore a gray jersey himself, and his hair was growing more curly every moment in the dampness.
"Fogger's on duty," he said; "he's always worried when it's thick. And Mudder won't be out, either, till presently. Please bring that thinnest green book on the top shelf, and do hurry, Joan."
Outside the world had changed. The waves at the end of the rock were only a blur of curling foam through the gray, melting suddenly into emptiness. Off the pier Joan could barely see the Ailouros, which rose and fell gently, the halyards slapping the wet mast with a lonely sound. Out of the impenetrable mystery of the fog came whistlings and hootings, impossibly deep growls and shrill screeches.
"It sounds zackly like a lot of great sea-beasts fighting and roaring, doesn't it?" said Garth, as they sat down on the rocks. "But it's just the nice old tugs talking to their barges." He chuckled reminiscently. "Once I said: 'That's a tug talking to her tows,' and Fogger said: 'Only babies talk to their toes; a tug talks to her tow.' He does say such 'diculous things!"
"Doesn't he!" Joan agreed.
"Now read, please," said Garth. "I don't know where the nicest ones are, that Mudder reads, but I think they must all be nice. Just begin anywhere."
Joan sighed a little. Her only previous experience of reading aloud to a child had been the entertainment of a small three-year-old girl whose mamma had gone shopping. The book had been provided by the mother and was an interminable tale about a Little Piggy and a Little Chickie. Joan opened the book at random, and then said:
"Why, this is poetry! Do you like these, Garth? Do you understand them?"
"I love it all," said Garth. "Please go on!"
So Joan read:
SHIPS OF THE SUN
At sunset, with their poops aflame,
The lofty golden galleons came;
The saffron sails of argosies
From far adown the world were these.
The phantom voice of vanished gales
Made ghostly booming in their sails;
The singing waters in their wake
The music of the stars did make.
The swarthy crew that manned the decks
Wore loops of gold about their necks;
They spoke together in a tongue
That once I heard when I was young.
At daybreak, with their sails agleam,
They vanished like a summer's dream;
The shining galleons, one by one,
Drifting to the sea-washed sun.
"The square-rigger was a little like that," said Garth gently, "except that she was silver, instead of golden. Yes, I think she was very like that. Please read the one about 'Home from the back of the world she came.'" But Joan had turned to the title-page and was gazing blankly at it. "The Sails of Argo," it ran; "By James Elton Pemberley."
"Well!" she murmured.
As she turned the page, to begin with the first poem, some penciled lines on the fly-leaf caught her attention, and she read them silently.
G. P.—A DEDICATION
He has stood where the surges roar,
And felt the fog on his cheek,
And heard the great bell speak
To the groping ships off-shore;
He who shall never know the feel
Of a ship with the high seas under her keel.
He has felt the nor'east gales
That shatter the howling sky,
And seen the schooners fly
Beneath their cracking sails;
He who can never know the thrill
Of the storm in the rigging, keen and shrill.
He walks a phantom quarter-deck—
Dear dreamer with the sea-rapt eyes—
Good winds, if in your power it lies,
Bring not his shadowy ship to wreck;
He whose crew can never be
More than ghosts from the misty sea.
Frobisher, Magellan, Drake,—
All ye good Captains of the realm,—
From the poop and from the helm
Pause a moment, for his sake,
Bend you on compassionate knees.
He with the soul of one of these,
Fighting a battle that no eye sees.
The book slipped gently from Joan's hand as she looked up at Garth. Sitting above her and a little apart, he was gazing into the blankness with the steady eyes of those who look much at the sea. His slight figure in the closely-fitting jersey made only a patch of deeper gray in the fog; his profile was cut clear and dark against the empty spaces. He had not been robbed of all the grace that was meant to be his, as Joan began to realize, gazing at the brave squaring of his shoulders and the splendid lift of his chin. She could not take her eyes from his face.
. . . And felt the fog on his cheek,
And heard the great bell speak
To the groping ships off-shore. . . .
It sang in her ears. "He who shall never—" She held out her arms suddenly.
"Garth! O Garth!" she cried.
He turned quickly.
"What is it?" And then: "Joan! What's the matter? You look so queer! You're not going to—"
Joan reached out for the book, where it had fallen into a crevice.
"What was the other one that you wanted me to read?" she asked gently.