Having now passed from the township of Holmes's Hole into Tisbury, the road lay through what would have been an oak forest, except that none of the trees exceeded some four feet in height,--Youth affirming this to be their mature growth, and that no larger ones had grown since the forest was cleared by the original settlers. A few miles more were slowly passed, and Mysie began to look hopefully from every eminence for a sight of the light-house, when she was stunned by the information, that they were then entering Chilmark, and were "'bout half-way."
Caleb, with an exclamation of disgust, leaped from "the shay," and accomplished the remaining ten miles, wrathfully, on foot,--while Mysie, wrapping her feminine patience about her as a mantle, resigned herself to endurance; but Youth, noticing, perhaps, her weary and disconsolate expression, applied himself sedulously to the task of entertaining her; and, as a light and airy way of opening the conversation, inquired,--
"That's curous! Women 'most alluz is,--'specially wen it's so ruffly as it is to-day. Was bubby sick any?"
"Wa-al, that's very fortnit, for I don't blieve he'll be sick wen he grows up an' goes walin'. It's pooty tryin', the fust two or three weeks out, ginerally. How young is he a-goin' to begin?"
"Not a-goin' to sea? Wy, his father's a captain, I 'xpect; a'n't he?"
Oh, the look of wide-mouthed astonishment which took possession of Youth's hitherto vacant features, at thus encountering a strong-looking man, in the prime of life, who had never been to sea, and a healthy, sturdy boy, whose parents did not mean that he ever should! He had no more to say; every faculty was, for at least an hour, devoted to the contemplation of these _lusus naturæ_, thus presented to his vision.
At last, the road, which had long been in a condition of ominous second-childhood, suddenly died a natural death at the foot of a steep hill, where a rail-fence presented itself as a barrier to farther progress. The bars were soon removed by Youth, who triumphantly announced, as Cha-os walked slowly through the opening thus presented,--
"Now we're on Ga'ed, an' I'll run along and take down the next bars, if you kin drive. Git along, Tom,--you ha'n't got nothin' but two feathers ahind you now."