og. They carve chasms in it and
open tunnels down which you see far for a moment, then they wind
it like a wet sheet about you and you may not see the bobstay from
your post at the tiller.

[Illustration: Outward Bound in Plymouth Harbor]

They bring you sounds and scents from afar. You know you are
abreast Grape Island now far you scent the wild roses on the
point. Another breeze brings faint odors of the charnel house from
Bradley's. A stronger chases it away and you have a whiff of an
early breakfast, brown toast, fried fish and coffee, at Rose
Cliff. The chuckle of oars in rowlocks tells you that the old
fisherman is astir at Fort Point and the man with the new motor
boat over at Hough's Neck is giving it a little run before
breakfast, with the muffler off, as usual. A gull goes over,
flying low. You do not see but you hear the soft swish of the
wings. By and by the sun shows through a rift in the fog and you
begin to move before a faint air from the southwest. A half hour
more and the shreds of fog are melting upward into the blue of a
clear day, the wind fills your sail and you are sweeping eastward
with wind and tide round the Sheep Island bar.

The Argo, bound eastward for the golden fleece, bearing Jason,
Hercules, Theseus and the other Greek heroes, carried no higher
hopes and no greater joy in the dangers and mysteries of the sea
than does many a keen-bowed sloop or broad-beamed cat bound
"outside" on a fishing trip. It is neither the goal nor the gain
that counts. It is the spirit of the quest. The golden fleece
looms eastward over all such prows. In the tide rip of Hull Gut,
where current meets current at certain turns of the tide in such
fashion that "the merry men" dance gleefully, is a dash of
adventure, and if you come through with a cockpit half full of
water and your clam bait afloat so much the merrier. Thus you are
baptized into the sect of the deep sea rovers and the leap of the
mysterious green dancers into your boat is the coming of Neptune
himself. Henceforth his trident is at your mast head, a broom
wherewith to sweep the seas as Van Tromp did. The conquerors are
abroad.

You may bother about the skerries that skirt Boston Light if you
will. There are cunners big and ravenous at the base of Shag Rocks
or along Boston or Martin's ledges. I dare say there are flounders
skimming the sand to the east of Hull, but you will hardly care
for these if you have Neptune aboard. His spirit will bid