nd barely
ripples the blue sea about, the wild roses smile between its granite
ledges, and the sea-gulls sail leisurely over them; or else gloomy and
solemn when it lies hid under a pall of fog while the ocean surges boom
and bellow along its rock-ribbed shore.

On the inner and right-hand shore of the secure harbor, a small fishing
village fringes both sides of a long street, and at the head of the
harbor, one mile away, stands another hamlet. The first and larger
village is called Rockhaven, the other Northaven. Each has its little
church and schoolhouse, also used for town meetings, its one or two
general stores, and a post-office. Those in Rockhaven, where fishing is
the sole industry, are permeated with that salty odor of cured fish,
combined with tar, coffee, and kerosene; and scattered over the interior
are a score of modest farmhouses.

At one end of the harbor, and where the village of Northaven stands, a
natural gateway of rock almost cuts off a portion of the harbor, and
here was an old tide mill, built of unhewn stone, but now unused, its
roof fallen in, its gates rotted away, and the abutments that once held
it in place now used to support a bridge.

On one of the headlands just north of Rockhaven village, and known as
Norse Hill, stands a peculiar structure, a circular stone tower open at
the top and with an entrance on the inner or landward side. Tradition
says this was built by the Norsemen as a place of worship. Beyond this
hill, at the highest point of the island, is a deep fissure in the
coast, ending in a small open cave above tidewater and facing the south.
This is known as the Devil's Oven. On either side of this gorge, and
extending back from it, is a thicket of stunted spruce. The bottom and
sides of this inlet, semicircular in shape, are coated thick with
rockweed and bare at low tide. On the side of the harbor opposite
Rockhaven, and facing it, is a small granite quarry owned and
occasionally operated by one of the natives, a quaint old bachelor named
Jesse Hutton. In summer, and until late in the fall, each morning a
small fleet of fishing craft spread their wings and sail away, to return
each night. On the wharves and between most of the small brown houses
back of them, are fish racks of various sizes, interspersed with tiny
sheds built beside rocks, old battered boats, piles of rotting nets,
broken lobster pots, and a medley of wrack of all sorts and kinds,
beaten and bleached by the salt