Culm Rock | Page 7

faint murmur told of the stir and bustle which were presently to reign. On the wharves a few early drays were rumbling down after their loads of merchandise, and one or two vessels had left their moorings, and, taking advantage of the favorable breeze, were standing out to sea, which fact did not at all add to Skipper Ben's good-nature.
"Here they come," drawled the mate, putting up his pipe; and then a carriage came rattling down the wharf, stopping in front of the "White Gull."
"Come at last, hev ye?" shouted the skipper, gruffly. "Call this a half-hour afore sunrise, squire?"
"Well," said the lawyer, looking at his watch, "I thought we were prodigiously early. Driver, put these trunks aboard in a hurry, since the skipper is waiting; and--Noll, are you ready?"
The skipper left his craft and came to bear a hand with the trunks, looking askance, meanwhile, at the boy who had got out of the carriage and stood on the wharf's edge, surveying the "Gull."
"Hope you'll have a good run, skipper," said the lawyer, as the baggage went over into a cavernous aperture in the deck; "fine breeze, I should say. Have a good care of this passenger of yours, man."
"Ay, squire, we'll manage. Can't stop fur words from ye this morning; should ha' been a long piece down the coast afore this time o' day. Bear a hand there, Jack!"
"Good-by, Noll," said the lawyer; "keep up a stout heart, my boy, and don't forget your city friends. You'll have a fine run down to Culm, and you must send me a line back by the skipper. Good-by!" and Mr. Gray got into his carriage and rolled back toward the city.
Noll Trafford stood leaning against a great post and looking after the lawyer's carriage with a slight choking in his throat, till the skipper's gruff "Get aboard here, lad!" warned him that the "Gull" was about to cast off. Slowly the wharf glided away, and the little coasting vessel stood out into the channel. The city spread itself out behind them, a long maze of brick and slate, with spires and domes showing dimly through the blue haze which wrapped them about. On the far, watery horizon lay a belt of vapory clouds which presently began to rend and tear and float off in ragged masses, and then a great red sun gleamed through and made a golden roadway across the sea, and transformed the misty fleeces of vapor to wonderful hangings of amethyst, streaked with great threads of scarlet.
"Jes' sunrise!" muttered the skipper; "make the best o' this 'ere breeze, eh, Jack?"
"Ay," drawled the mate, "we'll catch it afore long, skipper."
The city's old cold front suddenly gleamed out in vivid gold, the spires grew rosy in the first rays of sunlight, and, all its dimness and dulness gone, Hastings lay gleaming and glowing in the fair morning light like some vision of fairyland.
Noll Trafford, sitting on a great bale of merchandise near the stern of the "Gull," gazed at the city, slowly sinking and fading in the sea, with a feeling somewhat akin to homesickness. It had never looked so bright to him before as at this moment of his departure from it, and he was leaving behind a great many friends--all his school acquaintances, all the scenes and haunts that were dear to him--to go--where? He hardly knew, himself, but his bright fancy had pictured Culm as some pleasant little sea town, where there would, perhaps, be a great beach to ramble upon and hunt for minerals and shells, and where he would soon make plenty of new acquaintances. And Uncle Richard he had pictured to himself as a gentle, kind man,--grave, perhaps, but who would love him and try to fill the place of his own dead father. So, with these bright visions filling his mind, it was little wonder that he turned from the stern, after Hastings had faded into the merest blue dot on the horizon-line, and looked forward to the time when the journey's end should be reached, with happy anticipations. Before them lay the vast and boundless sea, with no trace of shore or island save a low blue belt in the south, like a cloud, and the "Gull" began to pitch and toss somewhat with the great ocean-swell. Skipper Ben, having got well in the way of the breeze which was carrying his vessel steadily before it, began to regain his good-humor. Sitting on the top of a cask, he puffed away at his pipe and soliloquized to himself about his passenger, who sat regarding Jack Snape's movements at the helm with much interest. The skipper had three or four boys at home,--great sturdy, brown-faced, stout-armed fellows,--between whom and this fair-faced, curly-headed boy there was little resemblance, he felt. "Town breedin', town