Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/271

 he'd be gittin' well by now." They were silent then, thinking deeply.

"I'm very sorry," said Derek. "What shall you do?"

"I'd like to go over to Yeoland and look after him," replied Lottie. "She said he was dead, did she?" . . ..

The next morning she set out with the three little girls. They were all in black.

"My maw she made them little dresses out of two black skirts a lady gave her," explained Bill proudly. "She sat up all night to do it. I wish paw could see them." He sighed deeply and went about his work.

That day a gale blew from the east. They were in for heavy weather, Bill said. Gulls, in ever increasing numbers, drifted above the foam-splashed waves that hammered on the bluffs like rowdies at a door. Spray dashed against the windows of Grimstone; foam clogged the mouth of the creek like lather.

Happy, wayward, fantastic creatures, the gulls! Exultant, crying, eager, voracious! Buckskin beat his fists on the window and laughed at them. How they swept and rose and fell, this one shooting upward like a flame, that one just kissing the rim of a wave with his breast! Wonderful gulls! Heartless, cruel, merry gulls!

All day there was no sun. Heavy purple clouds were draped like curtains above the green uneasy lake. In the afternoon sleet began to fall. To fall? No. To drive, to hiss, to spit, to cut like a whip! Derek thought his cheeks would bleed before he reached the barn. Coming back, he crooked his arm across his face and ran, his feet crunching in the granulated depth of it. The storm grew worse and worse.

When night came, he was too restless to read. He walked