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It seemed as if the waves jarred and thundered heavier on this Culm side than on his own quarter of the Rock; at any rate, the wind was more powerful, and blew the spray upon him in showers. "I'll get drenched, if the wind keeps on like this!" he thought; "if I weren't so near, I'd turn back; but the houses are in sight, already, and I've got to get acquainted with salt water. I'll keep on!"
If he failed to do this, it was all very well too. Back of the fisher huts, the rocks rose high and dark, and quite hid the pine woods and the isthmus of yellow sand, and everything that could make Culm at all cheery or pleasant. This eminence was Wind Cliff, and served as a landmark for all the sailors whose path lay along the coast.
Noll could not read his Bible verses that night, for the familiar, precious gift of mamma was locked in the trunk away round the shore at Culm; but he prayed with all the stronger longing for the Saviour's pity and help; and then from his bed by one of the great windows, lay listening to the moaning of the tide below, which seemed the saddest, lonesomest sound he had ever heard.
Taking a long culm of timothy-grass, I inserted the tip into the burrow. It progressed without impediment two, three, six, eight inches, and when at the depth of about ten inches appeared to touch bottom, which in this kind of angling is the signal for a "strike" and the landing of the game.
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.
They crossed the river at Culm Falls a beautiful spot and it was beyond the bridge, as the car was mounting the first long rise, that the party of adventurers found their first incident of moment. As the party came in sight of one of these farms, a great cry arose from the dooryard.
"God, indeed, might have made us quite other creatures, and placed us in a world quite differently constituted; but then we had been no longer men, and whatever beings had occupied our stations in the universal system, they must have been liable to the same inconveniencies." In all this, there is nothing that can silence the inquiries of curiosity, or culm the perturbations of doubt.
"And," thought Noll, "if Uncle Richard would only do as papa did, what a happy man he would be, and what good he could do for Culm!" But that time if ever it came was yet a long, long way off, he thought, and so the people must live on their old, dreary, wretched life till some one taught them better. The boy walked soberly home, with a great many serious, earnest thoughts in his heart.
He talked with Noll about the Culm people, and listened to the boy's hopeful and enthusiastic account of their slight improvement, with something that was very like interest. But the school seemed to interest him most.
He felt stiff and lame after his adventure of the previous evening, and not at all inclined to stir. But a sudden recollection of Dirk and his child, and the aid which he had promised them, came to him almost as soon as he was conscious of the day's dawning, and he got up and limped to the window to see whether there was any prospect of Hagar's journey to Culm being realized.