“Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?” quoted Roden, cheerily, whereat the little darky fled, with a shrill “Yah!” of mingled delight and terror, into the bacon-perfumed room beyond.
They were now stopped by some draw-bars, which passed, they found themselves ascending a steep incline sown with large stones, as though Jove and his giants might have had a sharp encounter just in that spot. But having gained the top of the bluff, they came upon a view at which Roden stood and stared in silent admiration. It seemed to him that he had never before so entirely realized the ball-like character of the earth. It seemed now to be swinging like a magician’s globe, imprisoned in another of larger size, which was hollowed from some marvellous, million-colored gem.
The air had changed suddenly from balmy warmth to a strange damp keenness, while the sky, which had cleared on their way up, was strewn from east to west with the same woolly clouds which had at first covered it. All above them was a lustrous monotone of gray, brightening towards the east into a pale daffodil, and farther towards the south into a lurid orange. From south to west a band of vivid violet-blue stretched solidly, cleft here and there with wedges of pale light slanting in regular order, like the bayonets of a vast army marching eastward.
“That,” said Virginia, indicating the gorgeous phenomenon, “means rain.”
“Oh, I think not,” said Roden, carelessly.
“Very well,” said Miss Herrick.
The wind blew ever stronger and stronger from the north, shifting suddenly to the north-east. Virginia felt a heavy splash of water upon her hand. She said nothing, but held it out to Roden in silence, and at the same moment the wind, scolding like an old hag who has been deprived by some adventurous urchin of her dinner, bore down upon them.
“Never mind,” said Roden, “we are only about a quarter of a mile from the top.”
“Won’t you put on your coat now?” said Virginia, blinded by the blowing of her hair into her eyes.
He replied that he did not feel the need of it, and strode on a little ahead. The wind sent his shirt in fine ripples across his back. One could distinctly see the muscles at work beneath the flexible skin. Strength, above all things, was what this little barbarian admired, and she saw it now in a perfection which filled her with unconscious satisfaction.