One morning a cloud hung over Thundergay. The next day the sky was overcast, the air oppressive, and faint thunder rolled, like the booming of great waves on a distant shore.
"Didst ever have weather like this before?" asked Barbara.
"Aye, long ago." The old woman laid down her knitting needles and told the story of that time, with the awe of one who had heard the flocks calling upon the hills night and day for water—a sound which lingers in human ears for ever.
"The ground cracked like an overbaked pot," she said. "The becks ran dry and Swirtle Tarn shrank till it was little better than a farm-yard puddle."
Barbara went out. She took the cattle track to the cave where she and the hind gathered the sheep from Thundergay. All through the hot oppressive hours they toiled, and by the afternoon the flocks were huddled upon the slopes above Swirtle Tarn, watching with frightened eyes the flashes of light, that lit up the gathering darkness. Then the hind left her to drive in the cattle.
Barbara was the only human being in that gloomy place. And she was the only living thing that was not afraid. The moor fowl called restlessly to each other, flew hither and thither, or hid themselves among the ling. A hare, crossing a strip of fern-clad slope, raised its head to sniff suspiciously, when it shot away, swift as an arrow.
At Greystones Lucy sat by the open door spinning. She dreaded a thunderstorm as something supernatural. She would rather have been with Barbara at Ketel's Parlour, than alone, here, with the old woman.
She lifted her eyes again and again to look at the mountain round which the blackest clouds were gathered. It seemed to draw nearer, until it stood like a black blot just beyond the barn. Then she got up and shut the door.
Mistress Lynn watched the girl with keen eyes. She had noticed that Lucy's face of late had regained its colour. But there was a hard expression upon it, and her speech came slower and less gaily than of old. The old woman knew the meaning of it. She could see into Lucy's mind almost as easily as if it were laid open for her inspection.
The daylight struggled and died; a grey unearthly gloom came on all things, a stillness as of death.