The Keeper of the Light by Henry Van Dyke — Read

At long distance, looking over the blue waters of the Gulf of St. / Lawrence in clear weather, you might think that you saw a lonely / sea-gull, snow-white, perching motionless on a cobble of gray rock. / Then, as your boat drifted in, following the languid tide and the soft / southern breeze, you would perceive that the cobble of rock was a rugged / hill with a few bushes and stunted trees growing in the crevices, / and that the gleaming speck near the summit must be some kind of a / building -- if you were on the coast of Italy or Spain you would say a / villa or a farm-house. Then, as you floated still farther north and / drew nearer to the coast, the desolate hill would detach itself from / the mainland and become a little mountain-isle, with a flock of smaller / islets clustering around it as a brood of wild ducks keep close to their / mother, and with deep water, nearly two miles wide, flowing between it / and the shore; while the shining speck on the seaward side stood out / clearly as a low, whitewashed dwelling with a sturdy round tower at one / end, crowned with a big eight-sided lantern -- a solitary lighthouse.

That is the Isle of the Wise Virgin. Behind it the long blue Laurentian / Mountains, clothed with unbroken forest, rise in sombre ranges toward / the Height of Land. In front of it the waters of the gulf heave and / sparkle far away to where the dim peaks of St. Anne des Monts are traced / along the southern horizon. Sheltered a little, but not completely, by / the island breakwater of granite, lies the rocky beach of Dead Men's / Point, where an English navy was wrecked in a night of storm a hundred / years ago.