"Do come in and change your things, father," she cried from the window.
"Right!" he answered. "I'm just going to give the pony a bite of hay and see he's settling down."
He soon appeared dripping wet and smiling, with his red dog turned to a russet-brown. The creature was downcast. It shook itself, scattered moisture, whimpered and crept to the fire. Auna, now cheerful, took a towel and wiped the dog. Then she left the towel for her father, who had already stripped off his coat and jacket, and bade him get into his warm clothes quickly.
He called her back in twenty minutes and she found that he had obeyed her. He was rummaging in a box of stores for the spirit bottle.
"Four fingers I must drink," he said. "The wet has got into the bones of my neck seemingly."
He swallowed a stiff glass of brandy, and then Auna lighted a lamp and prepared their meal.
"We've come up into a proper gale," said Jacob, "and the harder it blows, the calmer do I find myself, Auna. It'll tire itself out by morning and well have a fine day for putting the things in place."
After the meal he pottered about and cleared the passage, while she brought blankets and sheets from boxes, aired them and busied herself bed-making. She found her father drinking more brandy. He had been in the parlour and he had returned there presently, set a candle on the mantelpiece and stood looking at Margery's photograph. She left him there and turned to settling the crockery on the dresser. Then, an hour later, she returned, to find him still standing motionless in the parlour. The wind shouted and some tar-pitched slates on the roof were chattering as though the house shivered.
Jacob at her call woke from his reverie and came to the fire. He had grown very silent. She pulled up his big arm-chair, and he sat down in it and spread his hands to the red peat.
"Like a death-rattle up over," he said. "We must put those slates right, Margery."