The Dawning of the Day Read Online Free

because you got an interesting passenger.”
    Philippa waved her hand to him. “Good-by, and thank you,” she said. The boat was backing away from the Ella Vye , and Philippa went to sit down on the clean crate placed for her in the lee of the cabin. She watched the two boys in yellow oilskins by the wheel, her first Bennett’s Islanders, except for the Campion brothers.
    The boat made a slow circle and slipped forward, the water rippling and chuckling along her sides. I hope I don’t get frightened out there, Philippa thought. Or if I do, I hope I can hide it. It will be a good thing for me if they tell the rest that I didn’t turn green with terror or seasickness no matter how bad it was.
    And with a desire to armor herself in all ways possible against what was coming, she got up from the crate, turned, and folded her arms on the shoulder-high roof of the cuddy. Suddenly the engine moved into a higher speed; the boat made a long smooth lunge forward that reminded her of a deer leaping over a fallen tree, and seemed to rush headlong toward the open water and the wind.

CHAPTER 3
    S he did not have to pretend. The boat reassured her with the even rhythm of the engine beating through the sturdy planking; at the same time it might have been composed of feathers and air, like the medricks that skimmed over the water just outside Brigport Harbor. In spite of the tired ache in her bones, Philippa felt a springing of exhilaration as she watched the shape of Bennett’s Island grow large and sharply defined upon the horizon.
    The magic of islands, Justin said, was as old as life. They had been talking of other islands, then, the ones they planned to visit and explore, the isles of the Aegean, the Hebrides, Skye. But they’d had no time to find out about them.
    Halfway between Brigport and Bennett’s they passed a hump of islet, all sun-washed rock crowned with green turf. Gulls flew up from it, balancing on the wind and crying; a black ram stood on a high place and looked down at the boat as it rolled in the backwash from the shore.
    â€œTenpound Island,” the red-haired boy shouted to her. “Lots of good grass there for sheep!” She looked back for a long time at the ram braced arrogantly against the pale turquoise sky. She wanted to get the picture complete for Eric.
    When she turned toward the bow again, Bennett’s Island had changed from a low blue mass to a definite shape composed of thick green spruce woods, steep rocky beaches wet in the shade and shimmering in the sun, and a sudden wide field of yellow grasses that seemed to stretch across the island to open sea.
    They came abreast of a ledge rearing out of the surf; a spruce-covered point loomed above them. Suddenly the boat lunged and bucked as if in panic. Philippa was thrown off balance and gripped at the cuddy door for support. As the boat seemed to sink away from her feet, she had a moment of instinctive terror. An arm went firmly around her waist and held her hard.
    â€œJust coming into the harbor,” Charles Bennett said. His face was so close to hers she could feel on her cheek the warmth emanating from his flesh. He was staring straight ahead, but there was a rush of color under his brown skin.
    â€œDo you always come into the harbor so violently?” she asked, and moved casually away from him. “Thanks for catching me. I haven’t got my sea legs yet.”
    â€œTide rip right here,” he answered, still without looking at her, and went back to take the wheel from Fort. She was amused by his embarrassment.
    The boat went along the inner side of the high, wooded point and headed toward the first wharf beyond the descent of the point. A man stood on the wharf watching them, and suddenly she knew it was Asanath Campion. In duck-billed cap, blue shirt and work pants, and rubber boots, he looked far taller than he had been in her sister’s living room. There was a stack of new traps behind him