Suddenly out of the dull sky came a quick spatter of big drops. She slipped from her son's embrace, and went in to see to windows and doors.
He moved a lazy flanneled leg further from the edge of the porch, where the splashing drops bounced inward.
There was a short lull. He rose, as a white tongue of fire forked its way toward the near summit of Shadow Mountain, followed immediately by a deafening pattering rattle of thunder.
Hurrying in from the front porch, his mother met him, a strained look in her eyes. "There's a storm coming, Pell. Your father's on the way home. I hope it doesn't catch him."
Pelham moved idly into the library. Out of the side window he could see the approaching wall of misty rain, blotting out the familiar outlines of trees, the negro cottage beyond the spring depression, the spring buildings, the outhouses. How quiet, how unerring and irresistible its course!
The marching fusillade of drops touched the side of the barn, and darkened it ominously: from a soft gray it shaded swiftly to a rain-drenched black. Now it menaced the house itself; now the impartial advance of the shrapnel, in slanting crystal lines, brought the house beneath its unrelenting fire.
Pelham switched on the light, and pulled out an unread volume of Stevenson. His fingers loafed over the leaves, as he listened to the persistent drive of the storm.
IX
The rain exhausted its ammunition during the night; a clear truce followed. The bright green cleanliness of leaves, the reburnished brilliance of golden-glow and flaming canna, showed the hill heartened by the hours of storm.