Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/192

172 Rain dimmed the glass, but through it could be seen dull water buffeted by the wind. Gusts shrieked around the staunch walls, and now and then a swirl of salt spray dashed against the seaward windows.

"I'm very glad," Joan remarked, "that I'm not sitting on a rock where there is no house!"

All afternoon the wind howled and boomed around the lighthouse. Though the rain had stopped, the seas grew larger and ran half over the rock. The landing was drenched, its sun-bleached timber now dark and glistening. The Ailouros still rode secure at her moorings, though she leaped and pulled at her cables, twisting into the wind, her mast swinging in erratic circles against the gray sky.

"What sort of eerie kinship have you with the elements, Jim?" Elspeth inquired as her husband entered, dripping, for the third time since luncheon. "Can't you keep out of the weather? I'm sure you don't need to splash around out there all the time."

Jim slipped off his oilskins once more.

"I've finished—really," he said; "but I do like to mess about in it."

He lit his pipe and seated himself on the edge