XIV Conclusion
To-morrow we leave for the mainland, and how shall we spend this our last day, precious as last things nearly always are?
It is a lovely day, with a clear, pure sky, and just enough breeze to ruffle the sea into crisp little waves, and make it wear its many-twinkling smile. Just the day for sailing in and out amongst the islands for the last time; but not one upon which we may venture beyond the roads; for round the outer rocks we can see the foam surging high, and making broken white lines along the surface of the sea.
So we will go sailing within the roadstead, and take a last look at the islands from this sheltered inner side.
How sorry we are to take leave of them all! Of St. Mary’s, which with every visit has come to feel more home-like, where nearly every face we meet now seems to look familiar and friendly, and where the bustle and stir of life seem in comparison so very great when we return to it from one of the off-islands!
For there is always some small excitement going on at Hugh Town.
One day it is a French fisherman who has been seized by the “Argus,” the little man-of-war that lies in wait for poachers. He has been found fishing within the three-mile limit, and is punished, perhaps, by a fine and the confiscation of his fish.
Another time it is the arrival of a vessel from Scandinavia, laden with wood for flower-boxes. She is an antique Dutch scow, in shape like a flatiron, and with a hold like the bottomless pit, out of which are emptied two hundred tons of wood, all ready cut into tops and bottoms and sides, and needing only to be nailed together. She comes waddling in one Sunday morning long after she was expected, having been delayed by bad weather; and there is a fine row with the captain, who has left too much of his cargo at the Channel Islands en route, and now wants to receive full pay in Scilly for a deficient supply. But Scillonians know better! Or there is the arrival of the crew of a steam-drifter, which has struck on Gorregan in a fog. The men, fifteen in number, and natives of Brittany, got off in their small boat, and when daylight dawned were rescued by St. Agnes islanders. They are thoroughly enjoying themselves now that their painful experience is over. Clothes were lent to them temporarily on St. Agnes, but now they must be reclothed by the agents of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, and it is amusing to see them being trotted round in a body to be outfitted. There are not enough coats and waistcoats to go round, but this does not matter at all. They revel in exhibiting their gorgeous embroidered braces, and their feet, encased in bran-new leather boots, probably for the first time in their lives.
These are just typical everyday happenings; but now and then there is some big event, which stirs the islands to their depths.
So who could ever find the islands dull?
Who indeed could be dull, with such a sea on which to sail, with such free and lonely downs on which to roam, and such a wealth of islands to explore! Only those, I think, who pack their dullness in their portmanteaus and carry it with them wherever they go.
And now we must say goodbye to it all. First we will sail to Tresco and take leave of the few friends we have made there. One of them gives us as a parting gift a bunch of Cynosures—“Shiny-shores,” she calls them; and surely a more poetical name for this lovely golden narcissus than the one it really bears—“dog’s tail,” if we carry it back to its original meaning.
To Bryher next, just to gather a few early buds of sea-pink from the downs by Hell Bay, and to wave farewell to those we know who live in Bryher Town.
It is as we are flying merrily along to St. Martin’s that I remember I have made no sketch of this sailing-boat on which we have spent so many happy hours. And yet she is a thing of beauty, and well deserves recording. Perhaps even now it is not too late.
Did you ever try to make a sketch of a sailing-boat in full sail from the very doubtful vantage-ground of the dinghy attached behind—with the painter let out to its fullest extent to give you sufficient distance? If you ever do anything so foolish (I admit it was foolish), I would advise you to persuade all your weightiest friends to accompany you; for so your cockleshell would gain a little in steadiness, and dance a little less lightly on the waves. And then, perhaps, your brush-strokes would not so often be made half an inch or more from where you meant them to be! In my case the forepart of the boat rose high out of the water, at intervals bobbing down with a splash, and I had the opportunity of trying the effect of a mixture of salt water with my paints.
I have heard a story of a lady who said, in describing a certain painting made on the Mississippi, “I know it must be like the place, for the man who painted it had made his colours out of the earths from the very river-banks he was painting.” On this principle sea-water must be the proper medium for painting the sea!
We must not stop long at St. Martin’s, for time is going fast, so we will content ourselves with climbing to the top of Cruther’s Hill above the pier, and letting our eyes, instead of our feet, roam over the island once more.
And now to St. Agnes, which has a special corner in our hearts. So we will sail all round it, for the wind has slightly dropped, and get a glimpse of every part before we land in Perconger.
A flying visit to the lighthouse top, to look down once more on the fields and gardens, rocks and headlands of the little isle; a scamper over Wingletang Down, with the fresh sea-breeze in our faces; and a last peep at the little lonely church by the shore. That is all there is time for, if we wish to reach St. Mary’s before dark. And packing still to be done!
As we sail homeward, looking back we can discern on the Gugh that strange and fearful-looking rock, the Kittern, also called the Turk’s Head; fearful-looking, I say, because its shape recalls to me so strongly Watts’ dreadful Minotaur, crushing the life out of the innocent, as he overlooks the sea.
How can I end on such a note as that! It is but a strange and idle fancy that has come into my head; and there is nothing gloomy about the islands to justify it.
Here is something which is much more typical of them, our boatman’s two small—very small—sons, who have come down to the quay to “help” anchor the boat. Their bright faces are full of light and life and sparkle, like the islands bathed in noonday sunshine, and encircled with “the innumerable laughter of the sea.”
They are true children of their island-home; their joyous freedom finds an echo in the joyous freedom of the Life around them; in the spirit of the wild sea-birds; in the leaping, restless, shimmering waves; in the fresh sweet breezes that blow across the downs; and not least in those dancing myriads of flowers, flowers, flowers; those “hosts in the sunshine,” sent, as God’s messengers, “to set our hearts free.”