Chapter VIII: Needle Rock

“What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.”

Griggs took them out sailing the next day, but was obliged to be back before noon to accommodate a second party; so Mr. Vance concluded to stay over another night, enjoy a sail by moonlight, and start for home early in the morning.

Meanwhile, he took one of the horses and set out to hunt up an old friend settled somewhere in the vicinity. The boys were to spend the time as they pleased, provided they kept out of danger. Half a dozen of them, headed by Jack Mullin, started on a tramp along shore, with their lunch in their hands. Two or three others borrowed a gun of Griggs and struck off inland.

“Let’s we have dinner over on that big rock,” suggested Dick. “The Point makes nearly out to it,—just one or two hops, and there you are.”

“Griggs says those low rocks and that strip of sand are all covered at high tide,” remarked Bill Finnegan.

“High fiddle-sticks!” said Will Carter, who never lost an opportunity of snubbing poor Bill. “Better wait till you’re asked for advice. We’ll dine on the peninsula, and if it changes to an island, so much the better. _I_ shouldn’t suppose such a swimmer would be _afraid_.”

Will could not forgive Finnegan for being the best swimmer in the party. Why couldn’t he have told he was born and brought up beside the water, and was as much at home in it as a water-rat?

Will had expected to lead off himself, most of the boys being novices, and chose to consider Bill’s accomplishments a personal grievance. Dick, on the contrary, was overjoyed to see how Finnegan “blossomed out,” as he termed it; dull, awkward, uncouth at home, down here among the rocks he was as ready and wide-awake as any of them.

“You know your father said we were to keep out of danger,” he remarked to Dick, as the latter began preparations for his picnic.

“Yes; but man alive! don’t you know the tide can’t come in in a minute? I don’t see any harm, only the trouble, and ‘many hands make quick work.’ Lend us a couple, won’t you?”

Needle Rock seemed especially suited to their purpose. There was a broad, shelving base large enough to accommodate them all comfortably on the shady side of the sharp, conical peak which gave the small promontory its name. They found a sort of natural fire-place on the opposite side, where they built their fire, broiled fish, and made coffee. If one was smoky and the other muddy, nobody considered it any objection, and nobody so much as looked at the sky, till a loud peal of thunder sounded just over their heads. They were on their feet in an instant. The sky was fearfully black.

“Take what you can and hurry over to the wagon!” cried Dick, seizing the coffee-pot and one lunch-basket.

“But the path—where is it? Oh! it’s all gone—all _gone_! We are drowned! We _are_ drowned!” and poor Robert ran this way and that, half frantic with fear.

“Don’t be a goose, Bob!” said Will, his own voice a trifle unsteady.

“I’m not sure it wouldn’t be a good thing if he was,” said Dick, taking a quick survey of the situation. “You were right, Finnegan; we oughtn’t to have come over here, but I meant to keep a good lookout.”

“Pho! all ’tis, we must climb up on that high shelf,” said Carter, carelessly. “Of course the rock is never half covered. Out of the way, Bill, unless you are too scared to move.”

Bill shut his teeth tightly together and moved a little nearer the edge. He had heard Griggs say the water sometimes rose to the very tip of the Needle. Most likely that was in a storm; but if the wind should go on increasing, and nobody knew where they were!

“We shall be ‘high’ if we aren’t ‘dry,’ up here,” called out Dick. “Only it’s a dreadfully narrow ‘shelf.’ Next time we’ll look twice before we leap.”

“Oh dear! the water’s clear up to our fire-place,” cried Robert, shivering with the rain and fright. “Don’t crowd so, Varney. What _shall_ we do if it comes any higher? Oh, I shall certainly blow off! Do get up here quick, Bill, so I needn’t be right on the edge.”

“He’s looking out for a more comfortable berth, where he won’t be crowded,” sneered Will, wedging himself into a corner.

“I’m going around the other side,” Bill spoke sharp and quick, and disappeared under the overhanging rocks.

“Come over to me, Rob,” said Dick. “There! brace your feet and you’ll be all right. It’s going to be more wind than rain, and if we only stick close—” but there was a tremor in his voice which silenced the oath on Tom Lawrence’s tongue, and sent a paleness over more than one cheek.

For the next fifteen minutes nobody spoke a word, or could have heard themselves if they had, it thundered so incessantly. The wind came in gusts, seeming to gather strength in each lull of its fury.

“How high is the water now?” asked Rob, when only the lashing of the waves broke the stillness. “Has it carried away the tea-kettle?”

“I guess it’s gone to sea by this time,” said Dick, trying to speak cheerily, although he shuddered at the steady rise of the angry waves towards their narrow refuge. Pretty soon Varney uttered a sharp cry as the white foam broke over his feet.

“Couldn’t a fellow swim ashore, if he knew how?” asked Tom, huskily.

Will Carter stood up and looked around.

“Not in such a sea as that, and there isn’t a boat in sight,” he said, shortly. “There’s no way; we might as well give up; it will be over our heads in less than an hour.”

He dropped down again, face to the rock. One loud, bitter cry for help broke from them all. The wind caught it up mockingly, shivered it into a hundred little echoes, and went shrieking away again. The boys crept still nearer together.

Suddenly Robert, who was clinging convulsively to Dick, cried out, “Say it over, Dick! Say it out loud! Will said there wasn’t _any_ way, and that’s so dreadful. Please, Dick!”

“I can’t think of the beginning,” Dick said slowly. “I learned it last winter, you know, but the third verse came to me when Will spoke. Perhaps I can think of the rest,” and in a voice low and tremulous at first, but growing stronger and clearer as the wind battled against it, he repeated,—

Once, tossed upon an angry, boiling sea,
A boat was dashed upon a dreary shore;
Heart-sick and like to die, his comrades three
Cried, “Cuthbert, let us perish! hope is o’er.

“The furious tempest shuts the water-path;
The snow-storm blinds us on the bitter land.”
“Now, wherefore, friends, have ye so little faith?”
God’s servant said, and stretching forth his hand,

He lifted up his reverent eyes and spake:
“I thank Thee, Lord, the way is open there!
No storm above our heads in wrath shall break,
And shut the heavenward path of love and prayer.”

Sweet to me comes old Cuthbert’s word to-day,
Sweet is the thought that Christ is always near;
I seek Him by the ever-open way,
Nor yield my courage to a shuddering fear.

The storm may darken over land and sea,
But step by step with Christ I walk along.
Dear Christ, the storm and sun are both of Thee,
And Thou, Thyself, art still my strength and song!