Part 24 (2/2)

No, of course not, I said, almost too promptly. Then I meditatedI dont know what youd call itbut I believe I understand now what people mean when they talk about their hearts going down into their boots.

Did yours?

Why, not exactlybutwellit certainly did feel suddenly very thick and heavyas if it had droppedperhaps an inch or two.

I believe, said Jonathan gently, you might almost call that being frightened.

Yes, perhaps you might. Tell mewere you?

I didnt like ityes, I was anxiousand it made me tired to have been such a foolthe whole thing was absolutely unnecessary, if wed looked up the charts carefully.

Or asked a few questions. But you know you hate to ask questions.

You could have asked them.

Well, anyway, arent you glad it happened?

Oh, of course; it was an experience.

Do you want to do it again?

Nohe was emphaticnot with that load.

Neither do I.

If the winds sometimes wearied us a little, they helped us, too. We can never forget the evening we turned into the Thames River, making for the shelter of a friends hospitable roof. We had battled most of that day with the diagonal onslaughts of a southeast gale, bringing with it the full swing of the ocean swell. It was easier than a southwester would have been, but that was the best that could be said for it.

We pa.s.sed the last buoy and turned our bow north. And suddenly, the great waves that had all day kept us on the defensive became our strong helpers.

They took us up and swung us forward on our course with great sweeping rushes of motion. The tide was setting in, too, and with that and our oars we were going almost as fast as the waves themselves, so that when one picked us up, it swung us a long way before it left us. We learned to watch for each roller, wait till one came up astern, then pull with all our might so that we went swooping down its long slope, its crest at first just behind our stern, but drawing more and more under us, until it pa.s.sed beyond our bow and dropped us in the trough to wait for the next giant. It was like going in a swing, but with the downward rush very long and swift, and the upward rise short and slow. How long it took us to make the two miles to our friends dock we shall never know. Probably only a few minutes. But it was not an experience in time. We had a sense of being at one with the great primal forces of wind and water, and at one with them, not in their moments of poise, but in their moments of resistless power.

After all, the only drawback to the cruise was that it was over too soon.

When, in the quiet afternoon light of the last day, a familiar headland floated into view, my first feeling was one of joy; for beyond that headland, what friendly faces waited for usfaces turned even now, perhaps, toward the east for a first glimpse of our little boat. But hard after this, came a pang of regret.i.t was over, our water-pilgrimage, and I wanted it to go on.

It was over. And yet, not really over after all. I sometimes think that pleasures ought to be valued according to whether they are over when they _are_ over, or not. You cannot eat your cake and have it too. True, but that is because it is cake. There are other things which you can eat, and still have. And our rowboat cruise is one of these. It is over, and yet it is not over. It never will be. I can shut my eyesindeed, I do not need even to shut themand again I am under the open sky, I am afloat in the sun and the wind, with the waters all around me. I see again the surf-edged curves of the beaches, the lines of the sand-cliffs, the ragged horizon edge, cut and jagged by the waves. I feel the boat, I feel the oars, I am aware of the damp, pure night air, and the sounds of the waves ceaselessly breaking on the sand.

It is not over. Its best things are still ours, and those things which were hardly pleasures then have become such now. As we remember our aching muscles and blistered hands, we smile. As we recall times of intense weariness, of irritation, of anxiety, we find ourselves lingering over them with enjoyment. For memory does something wonderful with experience.

It is a poet, and life is its raw material. I know that our cruise was made up of minutes, of oar-strokes, so many that to count them would be weariness unending. But in my memory, these things are re-created. I see a boundless stretch of windy or peaceful waters. I see the endless line of misty coast. I see lovely islands, sleeping alone, waiting to be possessed by those who come. And I see a little, little boat, faring along the coast-lands, out to the islands, over the watersgoing on, and on, and on.

THE END

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