Donal suddenly threw an arm round each of them, and pulled them down sitting. The same instant a fierce blast burst upon the roof. He had seen the squall whitening the sea, and looking nearer home saw the tops of the trees between streaming level towards the castle. But seated they were in no danger.
“Hark!” said Arctura again; “there it is!”
They all heard the wailing cry of the ghost-music. But while the blast continued they dared not pursue their hunt. It kept on in fits and gusts till the squall ceased—as suddenly almost as it had burst. The sky cleared, and the sun shone as a March sun can. But the blundering blasts and the swan-shot of the flying hail were all about still.
“When the storm is upon us,” remarked Donal, as they rose from their crouching position, “it seems as if there never could be sunshine more; but our hopelessness does not keep back the sun when his hour to shine is come.”
“I understand!” said Arctura: “when one is miserable, misery seems the law of being; and in the midst of it dwells some thought which nothing can ever set right! All at once it is gone, broken up and gone, like that hail-cloud. It just looks its own foolishness and vanishes.”
“Do you know why things so often come right?” said Donal. “—I would say always come right, but that is a matter of faith, not sight.”
Arctura did not answer at once.
“I think I know what you are thinking,” she said, “but I want to hear you answer your own question.”
“Why do things come right so often, do you think, Davie?” repeated Donal.
“Is it,” returned Davie, “because they were made right to begin with?”