eemed
to stand still and shudder round the house of Aros. It was the first
squall, or prologue, of the coming tempest, and as we started and looked
about us, we found that a gloom, like the approach of evening, had
settled round the house.

'God pity all poor folks at sea!' she said. 'We'll see no more of my
father till the morrow's morning.'

And then she told me, as we sat by the fire and hearkened to the rising
gusts, of how this change had fallen upon my uncle. All last winter he
had been dark and fitful in his mind. Whenever the Roost ran high, or,
as Mary said, whenever the Merry Men were dancing, he would lie out for
hours together on the Head, if it were at night, or on the top of Aros by
day, watching the tumult of the sea, and sweeping the horizon for a sail.
After February the tenth, when the wealth-bringing wreck was cast ashore
at Sandag, he had been at first unnaturally gay, and his excitement had
never fallen in degree, but only changed in kind from dark to darker. He
neglected his work, and kept Rorie idle. They two would speak together
by the hour at the gable end, in guarded tones and with an air of secrecy
and almost of guilt; and if she questioned either, as at first she
sometimes did, her inquiries were put aside with confusion. Since Rorie
had first remarked the fish that hung about the ferry, his master had
never set foot but once upon the mainland of the Ross. That once--it was
in the height of the springs--he had passed dryshod while the tide was
out; but, having lingered overlong on the far side, found himself cut off
from Aros by the returning waters. It was with a shriek of agony that he
had leaped across the gut, and he had reached home thereafter in a fever-
fit of fear. A fear of the sea, a constant haunting thought of the sea,
appeared in his talk and devotions, and even in his looks when he was
silent.

Rorie alone came in to supper; but a little later my uncle appeared, took
a bottle under his arm, put some bread in his pocket, and set forth again
to his outlook, followed this time by Rorie. I heard that the schooner
was losing ground, but the crew were still fighting every inch with
hopeless ingenuity and course; and the news filled my mind with
blackness.

A little after sundown the full fury of the gale broke forth, such a gale
as I have never seen in summer, nor, seeing how swiftly it had come, even
in winter. Mary and I sat in silence, the house quaking overhead, th