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taken seriously ill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touch her looks. She is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks
are a lovely rose-pink. She has lost the anemic look which she had. I pray it will all last.
3 August.--Another week gone by, and no news from Jonathan, not even to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he
is not ill. He surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him,
and yet it is his writing. There is no mistake of that.
Lucy has not walked much in 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.
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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.
Today is a gray day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is gray except the green grass,
which seems like emerald amongst it, gray earthy rock, gray clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the gray sea,
into which the sandpoints stretch like gray figures. 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 gray mist. All vastness, the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a
'brool' over the sea that sounds like some passage 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, and
that's why I've took to makin' light of it, so that I'd cheer up my own heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain't afraid of dyin', not a bit,
only I don't want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at hand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man
to expect. And I'm so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin' his scythe. Ye see, I can't get out o' the habit of caffin' about it all at
once. The chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me. But don't ye dooal an'
greet, my deary!"--for he saw that I was crying--"if he should come this very night I'd not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after
all, only a waitin' for somethin' else than what we're doin', and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But I'm content, for it's
comin' to me, my deary, and comin' quick. It may be comin' while we be lookin' and wonderin'. Maybe it's in that wind out over the
sea that's bringin' with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! Look!" he cried suddenly. "There's something in that
wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It's in the air. I feel it comin'. Lord, make me
answer cheerful, when my call comes!" He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth moved as though he were praying.
After a few minutes' silence, he got up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said goodbye, and hobbled off. It all touched me,
and upset me very much.
I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spyglass under his arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the
time kept looking at a strange ship.
"I can't make her out," he said. "She's a Russian, by the look of her. But she's knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn't know
her mind a bit. She seems to see the storm coming, but can't decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there
again! She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel, changes about with every puff of wind. We'll hear
more of her before this time tomorrow."
CHAPTER 7
CUTTING FROM "THE DAILYGRAPH", 8 AUGUST
(PASTED IN MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL)
From a correspondent.
Whitby.
One of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been experienced here, with results both strange and unique. The weather
had been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of August. Saturday evening was as fine as was ever known,
and the great body of holiday-makers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hood's Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick,
Staithes, and the various trips in the neighborhood of Whitby. The steamers Emma and Scarborough made trips up and down the coast,
and there was an unusual amount of 'tripping' both to and from Whitby. The day was unusually fine till the afternoon, when some of
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the gossips who frequent the East Cliff churchyard, and from the commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of sea visible to the
north and east, called attention to a sudden show of 'mares tails' high in the sky to the northwest. The wind was then blowing from the
south-west in the mild degree which in barometrical language is ranked 'No. 2, light breeze.'
The coastguard on duty at once made report, and one old fisherman, who for more than half a century has kept watch on weather signs
from the East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic manner the coming of a sudden storm. The approach of sunset was so very beautiful, so
grand in its masses of splendidly coloured clouds, that there was quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the old churchyard
to enjoy the beauty. Before the sun dipped below the black mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its downward
way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset colour, flame, purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold, with here and
there masses not large, but of seemingly absolute blackness, in all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. The
experience was not lost on the painters, and doubtless some of the sketches of the 'Prelude to the Great Storm' will grace the R. A and
R. I. walls in May next.
More than one captain made up his mind then and there that his 'cobble' or his 'mule', as they term the different classes of boats, would
remain in the harbour till the storm had passed. The wind fell away entirely during the evening, and at midnight there was a dead calm,
a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature.
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