She described
this hotel as a beautiful and luxurious inn, situated on the
slight elevation of Manomet Point a few miles below the town. We
decided to spend the night at Plymouth and passed the road which
led to the inn. We found that the nearer hotels were all filled,
so we had to turn back and in a cold, dreary rain return to the
road we had passed.
As we proceeded on our way we saw a fishing vessel putting out
to sea. How many scenes that vessel recalled! We thought how
many families had been engaged in this precarious livelihood,
where their perilous calling was prosecuted at the risk of life
itself. The solitude and awesomeness of a stormy night at sea
along this rough and rugged coast is heightened by the wild
tempests which brood over the waters, strewing the shore with
wrecks at all seasons of the year. The news of the frequent loss
of husbands or sons, the roar of the waves, and the atmospheric
effects which in such situations present so many strange
illusions to the eye, must have been calculated to work upon the
terrors of those who remained at home; and melancholy fancies
must have flitted across their memories as they watched at
midnight, listening to the melancholy moaning of wind and wave.
No wonder phantoms and death warnings were familiar to the
ancient Celtic fishermen, for those terrible disasters that were
constantly occurring could not help but increase the gloom which
acts so strongly upon those who are accustomed to contemplate
the sea under all its aspects.
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