"You see," he would say to Clara, almost in triumph, when, in answer to a scowl, Alexander set up a cry, "he hates me!"
"He'd hate me if I looked like you," she replied, with rare sharpness. "If you'd only learn to be honest with yourself, my man, things would be better for us all."
Instead of honesty, he developed a fractious gloom which seldom changed to anything but despair, and if Clara did not lose her courage at this time, it may be that her buoyancy drooped a little. Yet she made him work. There was waste ground behind the house, and, after constant urging and encouragement from Clara, who also found time to ask Heaven to mete adequate punishment on his father, he made it into a garden of which he was proud, and when she saw him working there, with a cleared brow, she felt that, after all, they had not made such a bad thing of their lives.
There remained the problem of Alexander, for the attitude of the menfolk towards each other grew bitterer with the years, and she passed her days in dread of ultimate violence; but it did not do, she found, to live too much in the future, experiencing troubles which a wise optimism might frustrate, and so, following the creatures of the wilds, she had developed those characteristics which were most likely to preserve herself and hers, until, like the willingness of her neighbours, her heroic effort had become a habit.
[CHAPTER IV]
Early on the Saturday morning when her father was expected to return, Theresa awoke and, quickly flinging off the bedclothes, sat up with a jerk. The busy fingers of the wind were tapping at the pane, calling her to come out and play, and from the bottom of the hill there rose a more imperative summons, the hooting of a steamer making her way out of the docks. It was high tide, and she smiled her pleasure, hugging her knees. Every day that sound was borne up to her on the hill, like a trumpet call to life. From the window of the bedroom which she shared with Grace she could see the ships, and she believed that cry of theirs was to give her greeting or farewell. The steamers spoke for themselves, but the sailing ships borrowed the voices of the tugs that took them down the river and even in the quiet and mystery of night they did not forget her. Lying awake, she would wave her hand to them, and as she stared at the square of dark sky framed in the window, she would fancy she looked upward from the deck of some sea-going ship, saw the sky streaked and crossed by the masts and yards above, or mistily, behind a waving flag of smoke. But that voice of the ships was more than the salute of friends; there were times when she heard it as a call, a command, or a sweet persuasion. It called her into the darkness of the night and the crash of storm, and then, for all she lay snug and safe in bed, she felt the wind buffeting her, tasted the salt on her lips; or, if the night were very still and warm, she thought she sailed under a sky of immeasurable blackness, pricked with stars. She heard the ship swishing through the water, black, too, as though mirroring the sky, heard the creaking sounds among the cordage and the spars, and the orders coming clear and loud into the darkness.
What a morning for going out to sea, with the wind fresh, the air smelling of all clean things, the sunlight gilding the world! Her eyes danced as she watched the clouds sailing past her window, driven by the lusty breeze; these were the boats of the sky—great galleons, little yachts, riding majestically or bobbing gaily across the blue.
She turned her head sharply to look at the sleeper by her side. "Grace!" she said, and shook her. "Grace! Wake up, you lazy thing! It's a fine day."
For answer, Grace's head was rolled from side to side, and her nose buried more deeply in the pillow.