[CHAPTER V]
A TERRIBLE NIGHT
Although there had been plenty of wind, and a heavy sea running for the greater part of the winter, Pat had not seen what Jim called a "real storm" until Christmas had been several weeks old, and January had nearly run its course. The child called any rough bout of windy weather a storm, and did not quite believe that Jim could be right in declaring that it was "only a capful of wind," or that it was "only half a gale, after all." But there came one night late on in January when he began to understand very well what Jim had meant, and to realise that he had not really understood before what a real winter storm could be like.
All day there had been a strange new sound in the moaning and the shrieking of the wind. His father had looked often at the glass, and had remarked almost every time he did so that "they were going to get it this time, and no mistake." Jim had been so busy up aloft that Pat had hardly seen him since breakfast-time; and even the sea-gull seemed to partake in the general uneasiness, for he flapped his wings, and screamed and cried in a way that was quite unusual for him; and when Jim came downstairs about dinner-time, he walked out to the side of the cage where the child stood watching his favourite, and said—
"I'd bring him indoors to-night, Pat. I'd not answer for it but that the water will be over here before morning. Anyway, there's be sheets of spray flying about enough to drown the bird, if he's left where he is."
Pat looked up wonderingly, for though one end of the great caged-in place ran down towards the lower rocks, the upper end was against the lighthouse itself, and it seemed impossible to the child that the waves should ever reach as high as that. He had lived seven or eight months in his new home by this time, and had never seen the sea as high as that yet. But of course Jim must know best.