HIGH-WATER MARK
by Bret Harte
When the tide was out on the Dedlow Marsh, its extended
dreariness was patent. Its spongy, low-lying surface,
sluggish, inky pools, and tortuous sloughs, twisting
their slimy way, eel-like, toward the open bay, were
all hard facts. So were the few green tussocks, with
their scant blades, their amphibious flavor, and unpleasant
dampness. And if you choose to indulge your fancy,--although
the flat monotony of Dedlow Marsh was not inspiring,--the
wavy line of scattered drift gave an unpleasant consciousness
of the spent waters, and made the dead certainty of the
returning tide a gloomy reflection which no present sunshine
could dissipate. The greener meadow-land seemed oppressed
with this idea, and made no positive attempt at vegetation
until the work of reclamation should be complete. In the
bitter fruit of the low cranberry-bushes one might fancy
he detected a naturally sweet disposition curdled and soured
by an injudicious course of too much regular cold water.
The vocal expression of the Dedlow Marsh was also melancholy
and depressing. The sepulchral boom of the bittern, the shriek
of the curlew, the scream of passing brent, the wrangling of
quarrelsome teal, the sharp, querulous protest of the startled
crane, and syllabled complaint of the "killdeer" plover, were
beyond the power of written expression. Nor was the aspect of
these mournful fowls at all cheerful and inspiring. Certainly
not the blue heron standing mid-leg deep in the water, obviously
catching cold in a reckless disregard of wet feet and consequences;
nor the mournful curlew, the dejected plover, or the low-spirited
snipe, who saw fit to join him in his suicidal contemplation;
nor the impassive king-fisher--an ornithological Marius--reviewing
the desolate expanse; nor the black raven that went to and fro
over the face of the marsh continually, but evidently couldn't
make up his mind whether the waters had subsided, and felt
low-spirited in the reflection that, after all this trouble,
he wouldn't be able to give a definite answer. On the contrary,
it was evident at a glance that the dreary expanse of Dedlow
Marsh told unpleasantly on the birds, and that the season of
migration was looked forward to with a feeling of relief and
satisfaction by the full-grown, and of extravagant anticipation
by the callow, brood. But if Dedlow Marsh was cheerless at the
slack of the low tide, you should have seen it when the tide was
strong and full. When the damp air blew chilly over the cold,
glittering expanse, and came to the faces of those who looked
seaward like another tide; when a steel-like glint marked the
low hollows and the sinuous line of slough; when the great
shell-incrusted trunks of fallen trees arose again, and went
forth on their dreary, purposeless wanderings, drifting hither
and thither, but getting no farther toward any goal at the
falling tide or the day's decline than the cursed Hebrew in
the legend; when the glossy ducks swung silently, making neither
ripple nor furrow on the shimmering surface; when the fog came
in with the tide and shut out the blue above, even as the green
below had been obliterated; when boatmen lost in that fog,
paddling about in a hopeless way, started at what seemed the
brushing of mermen's fingers on the boat's keel, or shrank
from the tufts of grass spreading around like the floating
hair of a corpse, and knew by these signs that they were lost
upon Dedlow Marsh and must make a night of it, and a gloomy
one at that,--then you might know something of Dedlow Marsh
at high water.
Let me recall a story connected with this latter view, which
never failed to recur to my mind in my long gunning excursions
upon Dedlow Marsh. Although the event was briefly recorded in
the county paper, I had the story, in all its eloquent detail,
from the lips of the principal actor. I cannot hope to catch
the varying emphasis and peculiar coloring of feminine
delineation, for my narrator was a woman; but I'll try to
give at least its substance.
She lived midway of the great slough of Dedlow Marsh and a
good-sized river, which debouched four miles beyond into an
estuary formed by the Pacific Ocean, on the long sandy
peninsula which constituted the southwestern boundary of a
noble bay. The house in which she lived was a small frame
cabin, raised from the marsh a few feet by stout piles, and
was three miles distant from the settlements upon the river.
Her husband was a logger,--a profitable business in a county
where the principal occupation was the manufacture of lumber.
It was the season of early spring, when her husband left on
the ebb of a high tide, with a raft of logs for the usual
transportation to the lower end of the bay. As she stood
by the door of the little cabin when the voyagers departed,
she noticed a cold look in the southeastern sky, and she
remembered hearing her husband say to his companions that
they must endeavor to complete their voyage before the
coming of the southwesterly gale which he saw brewing. And
that night it began to storm and blow harder than she had
ever before experienced, and some great trees fell in the
forest by the river, and the house rocked like her baby's
cradle.
But however the storm might roar about the little cabin,
she knew that one she trusted had driven bolt and bar with
his own strong hand, and that had he feared for her he would
not have left her. This, and her domestic duties, and the
care of her little sickly baby, helped to keep her mind from
dwelling on the weather, except, of course, to hope that he
was safely harbored with the logs at Utopia in the dreary
distance. But she noticed that day, when she went out to
feed the chickens and look after the cow, that the tide
was up to the little fence of their garden patch, and the
roar of the surf on the south beach, though miles away,
she could hear distinctly. And she began to think that she
would like to have someone to talk with about matters, and
she believed that if it had not been so far and so stormy,
and the trail so impassable, she would have taken the baby,
and have gone over to Ryckman's, her nearest neighbor. But
then, you see, he might have returned in the storm, all wet,
with no one to see to him; and it was a long exposure for
baby, who was croupy and ailing.
But that night, she never could tell why, she didn't feel
like sleeping or even lying down. The storm had somewhat
abated, but she still "sat and sat," and even tried to read.
I don't know whether it was a Bible or some profane magazine
that this poor woman read, but most probably the latter, for
the words all ran together and made such sad nonsense that
she was forced at last to put the book down and turn to that
dearer volume which lay before her in the cradle, with its
white initial leaf as yet unsoiled, and try to look forward
to its mysterious future. And, rocking the cradle, she thought
of everything and everybody, but still was wide awake as ever.
It was nearly twelve o'clock when she at last lay down in
her clothes. How long she slept she could not remember, but
she awoke with a dreadful choking in her throat, and found
herself standing, trembling all over, in the middle of the
room, with her baby clasped to her breast, and she was
"saying something." The baby cried and sobbed, and she walked
up and down trying to hush it, when she heard a scratching
at the door. She opened it fearfully, and was glad to see
it was only old Pete, their dog, who crawled, dripping with
water, into the room. She would like to have looked out, not
in the faint hope of her husband's coming, but to see how
things looked; but the wind shook the door so savagely that
she could hardly hold it. Then she sat down a little while,
and then walked up and down a little while, and then she lay
down again a little while. Lying close by the wall of the
little cabin, she thought she heard once or twice something
scrape slowly against the clapboards, like the scraping of
branches. Then there was a little gurgling sound, "like the
baby made when it was swallowing;" then something went
"click-click" and "cluck-cluck," so that she sat up in bed.
When she did so she was attracted by something else that
seemed creeping from the back door towards the center of the
room. It wasn't much wider than her little finger, but soon
it swelled to the width of her hand, and began spreading
all over the floor. It was water.
She ran to the front door and threw it wide open, and saw
nothing but water. She ran to the back door and threw it
open, and saw nothing but water. She ran to the side window,
and, throwing that open, she saw nothing but water. Then she
remembered hearing her husband once say that there was no
danger in the tide, for that fell regularly, and people
could calculate on it, and that he would rather live near
the bay than the river, whose banks might overflow at any
time. But was it the tide? So she ran again to the back
door, and threw out a stick of wood. It drifted away towards
the bay. She scooped up some of the water and put it eagerly
to her lips. It was fresh and sweet. It was the river, and
not the tide!
It was then--O God be praised for his goodness! she did
neither faint nor fall; it was then--blessed be the Saviour,
for it was his merciful hand that touched and strengthened
her in this awful moment--that fear dropped from her like
a garment, and her trembling ceased. It was then and
thereafter that she never lost her self-command, through
all the trials of that gloomy night.
She drew the bedstead towards the middle of the room, and
placed a table upon it, and on that she put the cradle. The
water on the floor was already over her ankles, and the
house once or twice moved so perceptibly, and seemed to
be racked so, that the closet doors all flew open. Then she
heard the same rasping and thumping against the wall, and,
looking out, saw that a large uprooted tree, which had lain
near the road at the upper end of the pasture, had floated
down to the house. Luckily its long roots dragged in the
soil and kept it from moving as rapidly as the current, for
had it struck the house in its full career, even the strong
nails and bolts in the piles could not have withstood the
shock. The hound had leaped upon its knotty surface, and
crouched near the roots shivering and whining. A ray of
hope flashed across her mind. She drew a heavy blanket
from the bed, and, wrapping it about the babe, waded in
the deepening waters to the door. As the tree swung again,
broadside on, making the little cabin creak and tremble,
she leaped onto its trunk. By God's mercy she succeeded
in obtaining a footing on its slippery surface, and,
twining an arm about its roots, she held in the other her
moaning child. Then something cracked near the front porch,
and the whole front of the house she had just quitted fell
forward, just as cattle fall on their knees before they
lie down,--and at the same moment the great redwood tree
swung round and drifted away with its living cargo into
the black night.
For all the excitement and danger, for all her soothing of
her crying babe, for all the whistling of the wind, for all
the uncertainty of her situation, she still turned to look
at the deserted and water-swept cabin. She remembered even
then, and she wonders how foolish she was to think of it at
that time, that she wished she had put on another dress and
the baby's best clothes; and she kept praying that the house
would be spared so that he, when he returned, would have
something to come to, and it wouldn't be quite so desolate,
and--how could he ever know what had become of her and baby?
And at the thought she grew sick and faint. But she had
something else to do besides worrying, for whenever the long
roots of her ark struck an obstacle, the whole trunk made half
a revolution, and twice dipped her in the black water. The
hound, who kept distracting her by running up and down the
tree and howling, at last fell off at one of these collisions.
He swam for some time beside her, and she tried to get the
poor beast upon the tree, but he "acted silly" and wild, and
at last she lost sight of him forever. Then she and her baby
were left alone. The light which had burned for a few minutes
in the deserted cabin was quenched suddenly. She could not
then tell whither she was drifting. The outline of the white
dunes on the peninsula showed dimly ahead, and she judged the
tree was moving in a line with the river. It must be about
slack water, and she had probably reached the eddy formed by
the confluence of the tide and the overflowing waters of the
river. Unless the tide fell soon, there was present danger of
her drifting to its channel, and being carried out to sea or
crushed in the floating drift. That peril averted, if she were
carried out on the ebb toward the bay, she might hope to strike
one of the wooded promontories of the peninsula, and rest till
daylight. Sometimes she thought she heard voices and shouts
from the river, and the bellowing of cattle and bleating of
sheep. Then again it was only the ringing in her ears and
throbbing of her heart. She found at about this time that she
was so chilled and stiffened in her cramped position that she
could scarcely move, and the baby cried so when she put it to
her breast that she noticed the milk refused to flow; and she
was so frightened at that, that she put her head under her
shawl and for the first time cried bitterly.
When she raised her head again, the boom of the surf was
behind her, and she knew that her ark had again swung round.
She dipped up the water to cool her parched throat, and found
that it was salt as her tears. There was a relief, though,
for by this sign she knew she was drifting with the tide. It
was then the wind went down, and the great and awful silence
oppressed her. There was scarcely a ripple against the furrowed
sides of the great trunk on which she rested, and around her
all was black gloom and quiet. She spoke to the baby just to
hear herself speak, and to know that she had not lost her voice.
She thought then--it was queer, but she could not help thinking
it--how awful must have been the night when the great ship swung
over the Asiatic peak, and the sounds of creation were blotted
out from the world. She thought, too, of mariners clinging to
spars, and of poor women who were lashed to rafts, and beaten
to death by the cruel sea. She tried to thank God that she was
thus spared, and lifted her eyes from the baby, who had fallen
into a fretful sleep. Suddenly, away to the southward, a great
light lifted itself out of the gloom, and flashed and flickered,
and flickered and flashed again. Her heart fluttered quickly
against the baby's cold cheek. It was the lighthouse at the
entrance of the bay. As she was yet wondering, the tree suddenly
rolled a little, dragged a little, and then seemed to lie quiet
and still. She put out her hand and the current gurgled against
it. The tree was aground, and, by the position of the light and
the noise of the surf, aground upon the Dedlow Marsh.
Had it not been for her baby, who was ailing and croupy, had
it not been for the sudden drying up of that sensitive fountain,
she would have felt safe and relieved. Perhaps it was this which
tended to make all her impressions mournful and gloomy. As the
tide rapidly fell, a great flock of black brent fluttered by her,
screaming and crying. Then the plover flew up and piped mournfully,
as they wheeled around the trunk, and at last fearlessly lit upon
it like a gray cloud. Then the heron flew over and around her,
shrieking and protesting, and at last dropped its gaunt legs only
a few yards from her. But, strangest of all, a pretty white bird,
larger than a dove, like a pelican, but not a pelican, circled
around and around her. At last it lit upon a rootlet of the tree,
quite over her shoulder. She put out her hand and stroked its
beautiful white neck, and it never appeared to move. It stayed
there so long that she thought she would lift up the baby to see
it, and try to attract her attention. But when she did so, the
child was so chilled and cold, and had such a blue look under
the little lashes, which it didn't raise at all, that she screamed
aloud, and the bird flew away, and she fainted.
Well, that was the worst of it, and perhaps it was not so much,
after all, to any but herself. For when she recovered her senses
it was bright sunlight, and dead low water. There was a confused
noise of guttural voices about her, and an old squaw, singing an
Indian "hushaby," and rocking herself from side to side before a
fire built on the marsh, before which she, the recovered wife and
mother, lay weak and weary. Her first thought was for her baby,
and she was about to speak, when a young squaw, who must have
been a mother herself, fathomed her thought, and brought her the
"mowitch," pale but living, in such a queer little willow cradle
all bound up, just like the squaw's own young one, that she
laughed and cried together, and the young squaw and the old squaw
showed their big white teeth and glinted their black eyes and
said, "Plenty get well, skeena mowitch," "wagee man come plenty
soon," and she could have kissed their brown faces in her joy.
And then she found that they had been gathering berries on the
marsh in their queer, comical baskets, and saw the skirt of her
gown fluttering on the tree from afar, and the old squaw couldn't
resist the temptation of procuring a new garment, and came down
and discovered the "wagee" woman and child. And of course she
gave the garment to the old squaw, as you may imagine, and when
he came at last and rushed up to her, looking about ten years
older in his anxiety, she felt so faint again that they had to
carry her to the canoe. For, you see, he knew nothing about the
flood until he met the Indians at Utopia, and knew by the signs
that the poor woman was his wife. And at the next high-tide he
towed the tree away back home, although it wasn't worth the
trouble, and built another house, using the old tree for the
foundation and props, and called it after her, "Mary's Ark!"
But you may guess the next house was built above high water
mark. And that's all.
Not much, perhaps, considering the malevolent capacity of the
Dedlow Marsh. But you must tramp over it at low water, or
paddle over it at high tide, or get lost upon it once or
twice in the fog, as I have, to understand properly Mary's
adventure, or to appreciate duly the blessings of living
beyond High-Water Mark.
~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~
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