The old man gave him no answer to his careful speech; only he sighed suddenly and then sat still. He told himself that he might have known as well as Bob, if he hadn’t frightened himself out of his daft wits. He looked at the west and knew that no tide could come out of it to his hurt—out of that fragrant stillness and that golden air. And yet, in spite of his fear, he wanted to see a tide before he died—one of those splendid surges rollicking up the bay. Each roller seemed to travel faster than the one in front, and over-rode it in a shower of spray. The salt in the air was so sharp that it stung the eyes, and the life in it blew the spirit out of its shell; but he wasn’t strong enough to face that yet. There was a summer tide that he wanted to see, too, a full, blue tide with a ripple all over its face, breaking in long, crisp waves along the sand. This tide was the most human tide of all, a live, beautiful thing that you could almost clasp.... The waves, where they broke on the sand, were like slender bars of amethyst crested with snow.... But the tide that was coming out of that quiet west would never break; it would barely even lip at sand or wall. Hardly the wisest would know the moment when the deep sea sent it out. There would be no bull-roar to herald its approach, topped by the vicious hissing-note of surf. It would not even whisper when it rounded the point, and scarcely a line would come on the sand to show that it was there. A sleeping water, shallow and very smooth, it would steal and spread like the shadow of a cloud. Without fear and without hurry it would come, like the light that spreads before the sun has topped the hill. If the moon came up, there would be a golden glass where there had just been sand; but if there was no moon, only the river would know about the tide. “Tide’s low,” Bob said, and the peace of the evening came back. But, beautiful as the journey had been, he was beginning to wish that it would come to an end. That sudden shock seemed to have drained his strength and left him afraid of the fear within a fear. He would have nothing to say to the house if he was tired, and no number of perfect after-days could make up for the wonder of that first glad hour. He might even miss the first sight of it, perhaps, if his eyes should remember that they were really old. His brain might be numb or vacant at the first crossing of the door. It might be only a tired old man that would stagger in, thinking of nothing but supper and then bed.... He tried to rest his eyes by shutting them for a while, but found that he suffered more from the jolting of the trap. Every jerk of the horse seemed to startle his heart and hurt his bones, as well as stirring again the thought of that sleeping fear. And yet, as soon as he opened his eyes, his mind was off once more. Even the grass could not grow, nor the road wind, without setting his memories running out of the past.