She blazed and scintillated with a dazzling
brilliance, a throbbing splendor, that made the moon seem a pale,
sentimental invention.
Steadily she mounted, in her fresh beauty,
with the confidence and vigor of new love, driving her more domestic
rival out of the sky. And this sort of thing, I suppose, goes on
frequently. These splendors burn and this panorama passes night
after night down at the end of Nova Scotia, and all for the
stage-driver, dozing along on his box, from Antigonish to the strait.
"Here you are," cries the driver, at length, when we have become
wearily indifferent to where we are. We have reached the ferry. The
dawn has not come, but it is not far off. We step out and find a
chilly morning, and the dark waters of the Gut of Canso flowing
before us lighted here and there by a patch of white mist. The
ferryman is asleep, and his door is shut. We call him by all the
names known among men. We pound upon his house, but he makes no
sign. Before he awakes and comes out, growling, the sky in the east
is lightened a shade, and the star of the dawn sparkles less
brilliantly. But the process is slow. The twilight is long. There
is a surprising deliberation about the preparation of the sun for
rising, as there is in the movements of the boatman. Both appear to
be reluctant to begin the day.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 68 of 134
Words from 18219 to 18472
of 36169
