ternoon, having nothing to do, and curious to explore this
rock-ribbed island that was like to be his home for some months, he
started out on a tour of exploration. First he followed the seldom-used
road that connects the two villages, up to Northaven, and looked that
over. There was a little green in the centre where stood the small
church, and grouped about, a dozen or two houses and two or three
stores, while back of this, and below an arm of the harbor, it narrowed
down to where the roadway crossed it. Beside this stood an old stone
mill, or what was once the walls of one, for the roof was gone. He
examined it carefully, peering into its ghostly interior and down to
where the ebb tide had left its base walls bare. To this, and to the
piles that had once held the tide gates, were clinging masses of black
mussels, with here and there a pink starfish nestled among them. Then,
following this arm of the sea until it ended, he crossed a half mile of
billowing ledges of rock between which were grass-grown and bush-choked
dingles, and came to the ocean. Then, following the coast line as well
as possible, owing to the jutting cliffs, he reached a deep inlet with
almost precipitous sides, and, turning inland, found its banks ended in
a dense thicket of spruce.

Through this wound a well-defined path, shadowy beneath the canopy of
evergreen boughs, and velvety with fallen needles. Following this a
little way, he came to an opening view of the ocean once more. The day
was wondrously fair, the blue water all about barely rippled by a gentle
breeze, while here and there and far to seaward gleamed the white sails
of coasters. Below him, where the rock-walled gorge broadened to meet
the ocean, the undulating ground swells leisurely tossed the rockweed
and brown kelpie upward, as they swept over the sloping rocks. For a few
moments he stood spellbound by the silent and solemn grandeur of the
limitless ocean view and the colossal pathway to the water's edge below
him, and then suddenly there came to his ears the faint sound of a
violin. Now low and soft, hardly above the rhythmic pulse of the sea,
and again clear and distinct, it seemed to come up out of the rocks
ahead, a strange, weird, ghostly harmony that, mingling with the whisper
of the distant wave-wash, sounded exquisitely sweet.

Breathless with astonishment now, he crept forward slowly, step by step,
until at the head of this deep chasm, and down beneath him, he heard the