Chapter 27
The Year of Green Schooners

For the first time since the fire died, William Pender felt cold. Wind from Freshwater Bay curled up the seaward hill. It found all the live things that tried to keep warm.

He knew the wind as a younger person does not know it. A youth thinks the wind sounds kind. A man over forty hears another thing. He knows it searches out things it wants to make cold. It has clever fingers that pry.

It searches out things you want to keep tender and alive. It winds its way into wells and cradles, freezing water and chilling infants.

If you are awake to hear the morning star wind that wanders the most, you can hear that it is alive. You can tell by its voice that it wants to carry souls away on its back.

William got up. He tied his hares to his pack. He wanted to walk down to Freshwater Bay. With the early morning wind blowing he thought of the coming dawn.

From his house he never saw the sun rise. He always saw pink fingers of light on the city. St. John's looked beautiful then, a rose glow on the cathedral, and on the furled sails of the schooners.

He had loved those sails since he was a boy. He and Eddie Coady watched square-rigged schooners sail into the harbour. Gulls flew near them like torn scraps of the sails. When they docked he and Eddie tried to throw their hats on the tops of the masts.

No one chased them. Gulls and youngsters loved to play near sails and wind and salt water, and no one forbade it.