Polly had, of course, not remained in the house all that day.
When luncheon had come and gone she donned her rough, old-fashioned ulster, buttoned on her stout pair of boots, and pinned her sailor hat securely on her dark curls, then off she went, a little against Mrs. Blaine’s good counsel.
“You’ll get as wet as wet, miss. The wind is blowing straight from the sea, and it’ll drench you fair,” she remonstrated.
“Oh! I shall like it,” Polly cried, her spirits striving courageously to be bright as of yore. “I really want to be blown just inside out, Mrs. Blaine.”
And Mrs. Blaine laughed.
“It isn’t everybody as can get a wish as easily as you’ll get yours, miss,” she said, “but you’ll be back to afternoon tea, won’t you, miss? and mind you don’t lose your hat; the wind at Beachcroft is pretty strong.”
Polly was fully prepared to testify to the truth of this a few moments later, when she found herself driven back against a wall by the force of the rain-drenched wind, and had to stand there struggling to get her breath, for quite two or three minutes. But she was not alarmed—it would take a stronger wind than this to baffle Polly—moreover, she loved the fierceness of the elements, the stinging of the rain on her cheeks, and the keen, strong scent of the sea in her nostrils. It invigorated her, and seemed to sweep her through and through, driving away care and saddening thought, and all the other phantoms that had haunted her brain.
She picked her way slowly down the beach.
The sea was much nearer the parade now, and the thunder of its strong, high-rearing waves, as they leaped onto the beach and broke in a storm of snow-white foam, followed by the hissing noise of the receding water, as it drew shoals of stones into the ocean, was almost deafening.
Polly was a long time reaching any point of shelter, but she had picked out quickly a large shelving piece of rock that had been engulfed half an hour or so before by the restless waters, and here she determined to sit and watch the waves fulfill their allotted task, and recede from the shore.