her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her
which I do not understand; even in her sleep she seems to be watching
me. She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room
searching for the key.
_6 August._--Another three days, and no news. This suspense is getting
dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should
feel easier; but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last
letter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable
than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening, and
the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and
learn the weather signs. To-day is a grey day, and the sun as I write is
hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is grey--except
the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it; grey earthy rock;
grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the
grey sea, into which the sand-points stretch like grey fingers. The sea
is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar,
muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a grey
mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and
there is a brool over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom.
Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in
the mist, and seem men like trees walking. The fishing-boats are
racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into
the harbour, bending to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is
making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that
he wants to talk....
I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat
down beside me, he said in a very gentle way:--
I want to say something to you, miss. I could see he was not at ease,
so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak
fully; so he said, leaving his hand in mine:--
I m afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked
things I ve been sayin about the dead, and such like, for weeks past;
but I didn t mean them, and I want ye to remember that when I m gone. We
aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don t
altogether like to think of it, and we don t want to feel scart of it;
an that s why I ve took to makin light of it, so that I d cheer up my
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