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CHAPTER VII
DREDGING FLEET TACTICS
Jack Harvey was a strong, muscular youth, toughened and enured to rough weather, and even hardship, by reason of summers spent in yachting and his spare time in winter divided between open air sports and work in the school gymnasium. But the steady, laborious work of the first day at dredging had brought into action muscles comparatively little used before, and moreover overtaxed them. So, when Harvey awoke, the following morning, and rolled out of his bunk, he felt twinges of pain go through him. His muscles were stiffened, and he ached from ankles to shoulders.
He awoke Tom Edwards, knowing that if he did not, the mate soon would, and in rougher fashion. The companionship in misfortune, that had thus thrown the boy and the man intimately together, made the difference in their ages seem less, and their friendship like that of long standing. So it was the natural thing, and instinctive, for Harvey to address the other familiarly.
“Wake up, Tom,” he said, shaking him gently; “it’s time to get up.”
Tom Edwards opened his eyes, looked into the face of his new friend and groaned.
“Oh, I can’t,” he murmured. “I just can’t get up. I’m done for. I’ll never get out of this alive. I’m going to die. Jack, old fellow, you tell them what happened to me, if I never get ashore again. You’ll come through, but I can’t.”
Harvey looked at the sorry figure, compassionately.
“It’s rough on you,” he said, “because you’re soft and not used to exercise. But don’t you go getting discouraged this way. You’re not going to die – not by a good deal. You’re just sea-sick; and every one feels like dying when they get that way. You’ve just got to get out, because Adams will make you. So you better start in. Come on; we’ll get some of that beautiful coffee and that other stuff, and you’ll feel better.”
By much urging, Harvey induced his companion to arise, and they went on deck.
It was a fine, clear morning, and the sight that met their eyes was really a pretty one. In the waters of Tar Bay were scores of craft belonging to the oyster fleet. They were for the most part lying at anchor, now, with smoke curling up in friendly fashion from their little iron stove funnels. There were vessels of many sorts and sizes; a few large schooners, of the dredging class, bulky of build and homely; punjies, broader of bow and sharper and deeper aft, giving them quickness in tacking across the oyster reefs; bug-eyes, with their sharp prows, bearing some fancied resemblance, by reason of the hawse-holes on either bow, to a bug’s eye, or a buck’s eye – known also in some waters as “buck-eyes” – clean-lined craft, sharp at either end; also little saucy skip-jacks, and the famous craft of the Chesapeake, the canoes.
These latter, known also as tonging-boats, were remarkably narrow craft, made of plank, about four feet across the gunwales and averaging about twenty feet long. Some of them were already under weigh, the larger ones carrying two triangular sails and a jib. It seemed to Harvey as though the sail they bore up under must inevitably capsize them; but they sailed fast and stiff.
A few of these craft were already engaged in tonging for oysters, in a strip of the bay just south of Barren Island, where the water shoaled to a depth of only one fathom. The two men aboard were alternately raising and lowering, by means of a small crank, a pair of oyster tongs, the jaws of which closed mechanically with the strain upon the rope to which it was attached.
To the southward, other vessels were beginning to come in upon the dredging grounds, until it seemed as though all of Maryland’s small craft must be engaged in the business of oyster fishing.
With an eye to the present usefulness of his men, more than from any compassion upon their condition, Captain Hamilton Haley had ordered a better breakfast to be served. There was fried bacon, and a broth of some sort; and the coffee seemed a bit stronger and more satisfying. Harvey urged his comrade to eat; and Tom Edwards, who had rallied a little from his sea-sickness, with the vessel now steady under him, in the quiet water, managed to make a fair breakfast.
They made sail, shortly, and stood to the southward, following the line of the island shores, but at some distance off the land. The hard, monotonous labour of working the dredges began once more. Jack Harvey, lame and stiff in his joints, found it more laborious than before.
Tom Edwards, somewhat steadier than on the previous day, but in no fit condition to work, was forced to the task. He made a most extraordinary, and, indeed, ludicrous figure – like a scarecrow decked out in an unusually good suit of clothes. He had no overcoat left him, but had sought relief from the weather by the purchase of an extra woollen undershirt from Captain Haley’s second-hand wardrobe. His appearance was, therefore, strikingly out of keeping with his surroundings.
In him one would have beheld a tall, light complexioned man; with blond moustache, that had once been trimly cut and slightly curled; clad in his black suit, with cut-away coat; his one linen shirt sadly in need of starching, but worn for whatever warmth it would give; even his one crumbled linen collar worn for similar purpose; and, with this, a bulky pair of woollen mittens, to protect his hands that were as yet unused to manual labour.
Watching him, as he toiled at the opposite winch, Harvey could not restrain himself, once, from bursting into laughter; but, the next moment, the pale face, with its expression of distress, turned his laughter into pity. It was certainly no joke for poor Tom Edwards.
Mate Adams brought on the other two recruits, after a time, and they took their places at the winders. They were not strong enough to work continuously, however, and the two and Tom Edwards “spelled” one another by turns.
The wind fell away for an hour about noon, and there was a respite for all, save for the culling of the oysters that had been taken aboard; and Jack Harvey found opportunity to speak with the two newcomers.
Theirs was the old story – only too familiar to the history of the dredging fleet.
“My name is Wallace Brooks,” said one of them, a thick-set, good-natured looking youth of about twenty years. “I come from up Haverstraw way, on the Hudson river – and I thought I was used to hard work, for I’ve worked in the brick-yards there some; but that’s just play compared to this.
“Well, I went down to New York, to look for work, and I fell in with this chap. His name’s Willard Thompson. He’s a New Yorker, and has knocked around there all his life. I’m afraid he won’t stand much of this work here. He was a clerk in a store, but always wanted to take a sea voyage.”
Willard Thompson, standing wearily by the forecastle, did not, indeed, present a robust appearance, calculated to endure the hardships of a winter on Chesapeake Bay. He was rather tall and thin and sallow, dressed more flashily than his friend, Brooks, and was of a weaker type.
“We fell in with a man in South street, one day,” continued Brooks, “and he told us all about what a fine place this bay was; how it was warm here all winter, and oyster dredging the easiest work there is – ‘nothing to do but watch the boat sail, dragging a dredge after it,’ was the way he put it. He didn’t say anything about this everlasting grind of winding at the machines. Said the pay was twenty-five a month, and live like they do at the Astor House.
“He fooled us, all right, and we signed with him in New York, and he sent us down to Baltimore. They put us into a big boarding-house there, with a lot of men. Well, we found out more what it was going to be like, and we were going to back out and get away; but they were too smart for us – drugged our coffee one night – and, well, you know the rest. We’ve waked up at last. Whew, but’s tough! I wish I was back in the brick-yard, with a mile of bricks to handle. Isn’t old Haley a pirate?”
They were ordered to work again, soon, and the conversation ended.
Working that afternoon with the sailor, Sam Black, at the winch, Harvey got a further insight to the devious ways and the shrewdness of the dredgers, of the type of Hamilton Haley.
There sailed up, after a time, a smaller bug-eye, which ran along for some miles abreast of the Brandt, while the two captains exchanged confidences.
“Ahoy, Bill,” called Haley; “what d’yer know?”
“The Old Man’s looking for you,” returned the other.
“What’s he want of me?”
“Wants to see your license.”
“Well, I’ve got it, all right.”
Haley glanced, as he spoke, at his license numbers, displayed on two of the sails.
“Where is he now?”
“Down below Smith’s Island.”
“Has he boarded you?”
“Yes, looked us all over. We’re all clear.”
“Then,” continued Haley, “I’ll run alongside at sundown; where’ll you be?”
“Just around the foot of the island.”
“What does he mean?” inquired Harvey. “Who’s the Old Man?”
“Oh, he means the captain of the police tub,” replied Sam Black, grinning. “They’ll look us over, by and by, just to see if everything’s straight. It’s one of the state’s oyster navy.”
Harvey’s heart gave a jump. Might not here be a chance for liberty? But, the next moment, his hopes were dashed.
“Don’t you go reckoning on it, though, youngster,” continued Sam Black, “for ’twon’t do you a bit of good. There’s no police as slick as Ham Haley, nor the rest of his crowd. What’s the good of two old police steamers and a few schooners in goodness knows how many hundred square miles of bay, with hundreds of harbours to run to and hide, and islands to dodge ’round, and a score of pirates like Haley to help each other dodge? And any captain in the fleet willing to tell where the police tub is?”
“I tell you, it ain’t often they catch a captain napping, no matter what he’s done. Let ’em swear out a warrant, up in Baltimore, for a captain that has been beating up his men. Well, I dunno how it does come, hardly; but, all the same, the news gets down the bay and spreads all through the fleet like a field of grass afire. Pshaw! By the time they gets him, that cap’n has got half a new crew, and there isn’t a man aboard as saw the beating done, except the cap’n and his mate; and if they’ve done any beating up, you bet they’ve clean forgotten it.”
Harvey’s face looked blanker than before. “Then there isn’t much hope in the law, no matter what happens,” he said.
“Haley and the rest of ’em have got the law,” responded Black. “Haley showed that fellow, Edwards, the law. Don’t you get in the way of it. That’s my advice.”
“All the captains alike?” asked Harvey.
“About a score or so of ’em are downright pirates,” replied Sam Black. “They’re the kind I’ve fell in with, mostly. There’s good ones, too, I suppose – or not so bad.”
For all the sailor said, Jack Harvey was not without some faint hope, as the afternoon wore away and the bug-eye headed for the foot of lower Hooper Island, that the expected visit of the police boat might afford him and Tom Edwards the opportunity for escape. He gave the news to Tom Edwards, at supper time, and that weary unfortunate beamed with renewed hope.
“It’s our chance,” he said. “Won’t I fill that navy captain full of what that brute Haley has done aboard here!”
They rounded the foot of Hooper Island, after a time, and anchored in a bight of the north shore. Presently the craft that had hailed the Brandt bore up; and, shortly after, still another. The two came alongside, with their sails fluttering – but they did not let them run.
“There’s two for each of you for the night, and till I get an overhauling from the Old Man,” called Haley to the captains of the other craft.
A moment later, Jack Harvey and Tom Edwards found themselves hustled from the deck of the Brandt aboard one of the strange bug-eyes. Likewise, the men, Thompson and Brooks, found themselves similarly transferred. Forewarned, Harvey and his companion made neither inquiry nor protest. They knew it would be of no avail. But one of the others had ventured to know the reason.
“You jes’ please shut up, and ask no questions,” was the satisfaction gained from Jim Adams.
The two strange craft made sail again, and stood to the southeast, through Hooper Strait.
And so, when, next morning, Jack Harvey, looking from the deck of his new prison, saw a small steamer go by, with the smoke pouring from its funnel, he knew full well the significance of it; he realized the opportunity for freedom that was so near, and yet beyond reach. He was no coward, but a lump rose in his throat that half choked him. Tom Edwards gazed, with eyes that were moistened.
That day, toward noon, a steamer lay alongside the Brandt; and a captain, eying Haley with stern disapproval, said, “Oh, yes, you’ve got your license, all right, Haley, but you’re short-handed as usual. I know – it’s the same old story. Looking for men, and can’t get them. Now I know you dredge with more, so you needn’t lie. I suspect it’s lucky for you that I haven’t time to follow you up. But I warn you, there have been complaints, and some day you’ll fetch up short, if you don’t treat your men right.”
“And ain’t that just what I do?” demanded Haley, highly injured. “Don’t I treat ’em better’n half the captains down the bay? Good grub and easy work – why, they’re too fat to wind, half the time.”
The captain’s face relaxed into a smile that was half amusement, half contempt.
“I just warn you; that’s all,” he repeated; and went aboard the steamer. Haley watched his departure with a chuckle.
“Get her under weigh again, Jim,” he said. “We’ll pick up our crew.”
By noon, the Brandt had run in to the small harbour where the two bug-eyes were waiting; and, that afternoon, Harvey and the others were back at work, under the abuse of Jim Adams, hounded on by him, to make up for lost time.
CHAPTER VIII
A NIGHT’S POACHING
The days that followed were bitter ones for dredging. There came in fog, through which they drifted, slowly, while it wrapped them about like a great, frosty blanket, chilling and numbing them. When the wind was light, the fog would collect for a moment in the wrinkle at the top of a sail; then, with a slat, the sail would fill out, sending down a shower of icy water, drenching the crew at their work. But the mate drove them on, with threats and the brandishing of a rope’s end.
To make matters worse, the yield of the reefs was disappointing. Bad luck seemed to be with the Brandt; and, though it was the beginning of the season, and they should have been getting a cargo rapidly, the day’s clean-up was often less than twenty bushels; which brought a storm of abuse from Haley, as though it were the fault of the men.
He took his chances with the law, for several days, and ran down into Tangier Sound, hidden in the fog, on that part of its great extent where dredging was forbidden, and only smaller craft with scrapers allowed. But the Brandt went aground, late one afternoon, on a bar off a dreary marsh that extended for miles – the most lonesome and forbidding place that Harvey had seen in all his life.
They were half the night getting clear from here, having to wait for the flood tide, and the Brandt springing a leak that kept them toiling at the pump till they were well nigh exhausted. The upshot was, that, early one morning, with the lifting of the fog, the Brandt, followed by the craft that had taken Harvey and Tom Edwards aboard, stood off from the Eastern shore, heading northwest for the mouth of the Patuxent.
To Jack Harvey and his friend, sick and weary of the life they were leading, every new move, every change of ground, keyed them up to renewed hope. They watched eagerly the distant shore toward which they were pointing, and rejoiced, in some small degree, that they were going back to where they had started from. It seemed as though there must be greater opportunity for relief in that river, with its more friendly appearing banks, than amid the wilderness of the marshy Eastern shore, to which winter gave a touch of indescribable dreariness.
For a day or two, however, following their arrival at the entrance to the river, there was little change from the life they had been leading, save that the fog had been blown out to sea, and the bitter cold had abated. They dredged southward from the lower entrance to the river, along an inward sweep of the shore, returning to the river at night for anchorage.
Then there came a day, overcast but yet favourable, during all of which, to Harvey’s surprise, they did no work, but lay at anchor in the river. Also, the craft that had accompanied them likewise rested, alongside, and the two captains visited and drank together in the cabin of the Brandt.
What was coming? Haley was not the man to lie idle to no purpose. There was mystery in the air, and in the manner of the men and the mate. Once, Jim Adams had looked in at the forecastle, where the crew had been suffered to remain at ease, and said, grinning broadly, “Youse gentlemen of leisure, ain’t you? Well, you get something to keep you busy bimeby. So don’t none of you please go ashore.”
“Go ashore!” It was no joke to them. Harvey and Tom Edwards had gazed longingly at the banks, with their houses here and there – a tantalizing sight, so near and yet so hopelessly far away.
“What’s the matter? What’s up?” Harvey inquired once of Sam Black.
The other winked an eye, knowingly.
“I reckon the captain’s going to try to change the luck,” he said. “There’s easy dredging up yonder, if you don’t get caught at it.”
“How’s that?” continued Harvey.
“Why, running the river, that’s what I guess,” replied the sailor. “It’s jail, if the law gets you; but he’s done it before and got clear. Take it easy while you can, that’s my advice. There’ll be no turning in to-night, I reckon.”
Sam Black thereupon set the example, by stretching out in his bunk and falling soundly to sleep.
“Well, all I can say,” exclaimed Tom Edwards to Harvey, “is that I hope we get caught right quick and put into jail, or anywhere else out of this infernal hole. I’d go to jail in a minute, if I could see Haley go, too. Wouldn’t you?”
Harvey smiled. “I’d rather be outside the bars looking in at Haley,” he answered.
Tom Edwards impulsively put out his hand.
“Shake on that!” he cried. “Jack, my boy, we’ll put him there yet. We’ll sell him a line of goods some day, eh?”
The two shook hands with a will.
That evening they fared better than ordinarily aboard the Brandt. There were pork scraps, fried crisp, with junks of the bread browned in the fat, and potatoes; and plenty of the coffee. They made a hearty meal, and went on deck, at the call, feeling better and stronger than for days.
The night was not clear, yet it was not foggy; the moon and stars were nearly obscured by clouds. It was comparatively mild, too, and the wind blowing from the East across the river did not chill them, as in the preceding days. Opposite where they lay, the gleam of Drum Point lighthouse shone upon the water; while, out to the Eastward, another, on Cedar Point, twinkled, more obscured. An island of some considerable size lay to the northwest, from which there came across the water the sound of voices, and of dogs barking. There were sounds of life, too, from the nearer shore, coming out from a lone farmhouse.
The captain of the other vessel came aboard presently, and he and Haley stood together, earnestly conversing.
“She’s up just the other side of Spencer’s wharf, I tell you,” said the strange captain, once. “We can hug the other shore and slip past.”
Harvey turned inquiringly to the sailor, Sam Black, with whom, somehow, he had struck up an intimacy that was almost friendly, despite the man’s evident contempt for the green hands.
“He means the old Folly, the police boat,” said the sailor, softly. “She’s just a big schooner. She’s got no power in her. The Brandt can beat her, on a pinch, I reckon.”
The captain returned to his vessel, shortly, and the order was given to make sail. Harvey sprang to the halyards with a will. If it were a poaching venture, it was not his fault – and the best that could happen for him would be capture. The anchor was got aboard, and the Brandt ran quickly across to the Eastern bank of the river followed by the other vessel.
They passed close to Solomon’s Island and skirted as near the shores of that and the land northward as they could go. The wind was almost directly abeam, and they made fast way of it. Clearly, the course was as plain as a man’s door-yard to Hamilton Haley; for he passed at times so close to land, that it seemed, in the darkness, to be near enough for one to jump ashore. Jim Adams, in the bow, kept sharp watch, however; and now and again, rather than run the risk of calling out, he ran back to the wheel and pointed ahead, where the water shoaled.
Just to the north of the wharf which they had termed Spencer’s, the river made a bend, and a thin peak of land jutted out. They followed the curving of the shore, peering across the water toward Spencer’s.
“There she lies,” said Adams, darting aft to where Haley stood. “Listen, they’re getting up anchor.”
Hamilton Haley, after one quick glance, put the helm down and brought the bug-eye up into the wind. The other bug-eye drew abreast. Haley pointed in toward the schooner, barely discernible, and showing a light in its rigging.
“They’re coming out,” he called softly.
The two vessels headed off again and went on, rounding the point and running up the river. Haley, picking his course, with accuracy, gazed astern again and again, with an anxious eye. Presently he uttered an exclamation of anger. The schooner Folly had, indeed, put forth from its mooring and, with all sail spread, was taking a diagonal course across the river, following in the wake of the two poachers.
The shore of the river made a bend to the eastward, at this point, however, and the river broadened to the width of something like a mile and a half. So that, by following closely the inward curve of the shore, instead of setting a straight course up stream, the two bug-eyes could put the point of land between them and the schooner for a time. It would, moreover, afford them proof, when the schooner should have passed the point, whether or not they really were being followed. If the police boat were merely proceeding on its patrol up river, it would not hug the eastern bank, and might, indeed, go up on the other side.
The vessels were not left long in doubt, however; for, as the two skippers peered back through the night, they discerned, after a time, the schooner heading in north by east, having turned the point.
“Haul her a little closer by the wind, and give her a bit more centre-board,” ordered Haley, noting with a keen eye the more northerly slant of the wind, as they sailed. “It’s good for us; we can leave her, if this holds. Curse the luck! There’s no dredging to-night, with her on our heels – at least, there can’t but one of us work.”
The mate repeated the orders, and the bug-eye heeled a bit more as a flaw struck her. She was flying fast, and Haley’s face relaxed into a smirk of satisfaction, as he perceived the schooner was dropping somewhat more astern.
For a distance of about four miles the chase proceeded, when the Brandt suddenly swung into the wind again and waited a moment for its companion, slightly less swift, to come up. There was a hurried conference, and then the two went on again. The schooner, by this time, was only to be made out with difficulty.
The result of the conference was soon apparent; for, as they neared a point on the eastern bank, a broad creek opened up; and into this the Brandt steered, leaving the other craft to go on up the river alone.
Proceeding only a little way within the confines of this creek, Haley guided his vessel with consummate skill into one of its sheltering harbours, ordered all sail dropped, and everything made snug. The bug-eye was, indeed, completely hidden; with every appearance, moreover, of lying by for the night, in case their course should be followed and, by any chance, they were discovered.
Launching the small boat, Haley ordered Harvey and the sailor, Jeff, into it. He took his seat in the stern at the steering-oar, and was rowed by them cautiously toward the mouth of the creek, skirting close to the bank, not to be seen. Again the thought of escape flashed through the mind of Jack Harvey; but, perhaps with the same contingency in view, Hamilton Haley drew from his pocket a revolver and laid it before him on a thwart. If the hint were intended for Harvey, it was sufficient. He resigned himself once more to the situation and to the duty before him.
It was soon evident that the manœuvre had deceived the Folly, and had been successful. Through the darkness, it had not been perceived by the pursuer that the quarry had separated and taken different courses. Resting on their oars, at a word from Haley, the three watched. The schooner, almost ghost-like in the shades of night, swept along past the creek, following the other vessel, which showed only a faint white blurr far ahead.
Hamilton Haley motioned for the two to turn back, while his small eyes twinkled; and he said, smiling grimly, “She’s got the right name, sure. The Folly, eh? Well, she won’t catch us, nor she won’t catch Bill. Come, shake it up there with those oars! Ain’t yer learned to row yet?”
Within a half hour, the Brandt was stealing out of the mouth of the creek and heading for the opposite shore. The river was broad here, but the wind was free and they were soon across.
And now began the work for which they had come; for which they had risked capture at the hands of the police boat; and for which they would now risk the penalty of imprisonment, or, as it might appear, even death, itself.
It was very dark, the density of the clouds increasing as the night wore on; and the shore showed a vague, dark smear as they turned and went up the river. But it was all clear to Hamilton Haley. Born in a little settlement farther up the river, it was an open book to him by night or day. There was not an eddy, a cross-current, a deepening or a shoaling of all its waters for fifty miles that he could not have told you, offhand. A blur on the landscape defined itself to his eye as with the clearness of sunlight, bred of familiarity and long experience. He knew when to stand in close to shore; where to make a détour to avoid the long wharves that made out from the warehouses. He knew where seed oysters had been planted, by the owners that planned to tong for them when they should have grown to sufficient size. He knew when the beds had been planted, and which to leave untouched, and which would afford fat dredging.
There were no long waits between the winding here, as in many of the places down the bay. When the dredge went down, it was filled almost instantly. It was wind in and wind again, and the oysters, big and small, went into the hold almost as fast as they came aboard.
Harvey and his companions, drenched to the skin with perspiration, sore and lame, toiled on, driven by the threats of Jim Adams. There was no waiting for rest – only once in the night, when the cook brought out a pail of coffee, to keep them up to their work.
There was a ruthless, brutal disregard of the rights and precautions of the owners of the beds. Stakes and branches of brush, that had been carefully stuck down to mark the boundaries of this and that planter, were over-ridden and torn away. The Brandt was reaping a rich harvest, dodging in and out from shore here and there, making up for the time lost in the reefs off Hooper Island.
The hours passed, and a steamer, delayed by freight on its trip from Baltimore, passed along up the river. To Harvey, toiling away at the winch, in a sheltered sweep of the shore, this boat presented a strange and mysterious picture. Its lights, gleaming through the mists and the blackness, made a pretty spectacle. Its white wake looked like a scar on the dusky bosom of the water. It seemed, with its life and noise aboard, like a living thing.
A little way up the river, the steamboat drew in to a pier at the end of a long wharf. Harvey saw the doors of the warehouse on the shore and of the one on the pier open, and emit a glow of light from several lanterns; and, through the mingled lights and shadows, figures passed vaguely to and fro. Wagons rattled up along the country road, and the cries of the negro stevedores added to the noise.
All work had been stopped aboard the Brandt, and Harvey stood and watched the landing made by the steamer. The sounds told of business and of home life; passengers going ashore; once, the voices of young folks in laughter. Harvey gazed, with eyes that moistened.
Hamilton Haley, also, gazed, but with an earnestness of a different nature. He had not meant to be here, at the passing of the steamer. He had planned differently, but the steamer had been late and – well, the dredging at that moment when he had heard the distant whistle had been particularly fruitful, and he had waited and taken the chance. Now he wondered if that one sweep of the steamer’s search-light, as it passed, had found him out. Had he been espied by the watchful eye of the captain, keen for river poachers? At all events, he would lose no time in getting away from the place, once the steamer had gone.
The steamer went on its way, and Haley pointed his vessel up river after it. A mile above, he resumed his unlawful dredging.
The captain of the river steamer, bound for the port of Benedict, some fifty miles up from the mouth of the river, and already having lost much time, had urged the engineer to force all speed between the landings. The steamer’s funnel belched forth clouds of black smoke and sparks, as the craft churned its way noisily along. But the captain, eager as he was to end his long run, had something else on his mind; and the search-light now shot its shaft far ahead up river, now darted to the left or right, lighting up the banks and hidden places, so that objects along shore seemed to leap forth of a sudden as if surprised into life.
