SECEETS OF THE OCEAN 141 



of mackerel is passing. This latter sign always 

 sends the little sailing dories hurrying out, where 

 they beat back and forth, like shuttles travelling 

 across a loom, and at each turn a silvery strug- 

 gling form is dragged into the boat. 



A little distance along the shore the sandy beach 

 ends and is replaced by huge bare boulders, scat- 

 tered and piled in the utmost confusion. Back of 

 these are scraggly spruces, with branches which 

 have been so long blown landwards that they have 

 bent and grown altogether on that side, — ^perma- 

 nent weather-vanes of Fundy's storms. The very 

 soil in which they began life was blown away, and 

 their gnarled weather-worn roots hug the rocks, 

 clutching every crevice as a drowning man would 

 grasp an oar. On the side away from the bay two 

 pr three long, thick roots stretch far from each 

 tree to the nearest earth-fiUed guUy, sucking what 

 scanty nourishment they can, for strength to with- 

 stand the winter's gales yet another year or dec- 

 ade. Beach-pea and sweet marsh lavender tint 

 the sand, and stunted fringed orchids gleam in the 

 coarse grass farther inland. High up among the 

 rocks, where there is scarcely a handful of soil, 

 delicate harebells sway and defy the blasts, endur- 

 ing because of their very pliancy and weakness. 



If we watch awhile we will see a line of blackish 

 seaweed and wet sand appearing along the edge of 

 the water, showing that the tide has turned and 

 begun to recede. In an hour it has ebbed a con- 



