n a soft and almost imperceptible veil; but if the rain had lost the
wind had gained. And as he passed from the edge of the wood, all the
trees seemed to twang and creak, or cracked loudly, parting perhaps at
some dear nerve where sap and beauty would no longer course. In every
bush along the edge of the wood there seemed a separate chorus of
voices, melodious and terrific, whistle and whoop, shriek and moan. Even
the grass nodding in the wind lent a thin voice to the chorus, a voice
such as only the sharp and sea-trained ear may comprehend, that beasts
hear long before the wind itself is apparent, so that they remove
themselves to the bieldy sides of the hills before tumult breaks.

But it was the aspect of the sea that most surprised the boy, for where
before there had been but a dreaming plain of smiles there was the riot
of waters. The black lips of the wave parted and showed the white fangs
underneath, or spat the spume of passion into the face of the day. It
looked as if every glen and every gully, every corry and eas on that
mountainous coast was spending its breath upon the old sea, the poor
old sea that would be let alone to dream and rest, but must suffer the
humours of the mischievous winds.

It was but for a moment Gilian lent his eye to the open and troubled
expanse. He saw there no sign of ship, but looking lower into shore
he beheld the _Jean_ in travail at the Duglas mouth. The tide had come
fully in while he was absent, the delta that before had been so much
lagoon and isle was become an estuary, where, in the unexpected tide
and rush of the river, the logs of fir and oak were all adrift about the
sides of the vessel. Every hand was busy. They poled off as best they
might the huge trunks that battered at the carvel planks and pressed
upon the twanging cable. Forward of the mast Black Duncan stood
commanding in loud shouts that could not reach the boy through the
wind's bellowing, and as he shouted, he lent, like a good seaman, vigour
to a spar and pushed off the besieging timbers, all his weight
aslant upon the wood, his arms tense, a great and wholesome figure of
endeavour.

But not Black Duncan nor his striving seamen so busy in that confusion
of wind and water were the first to catch the boy's eye. It was Nan,
struggling by her captain's side at the unshipped tiller, and in the
staggering ship seeking to send it home in the avoiding helm-head. Her
hair blew round her with the vaunting spirit of a b