As it chanced, the weather about this time seemed to reflect Aunt
Euphemia's mood. The summer had passed with but few brief tempests.
Seldom had Louise seen any phase of the sea in its wrath.
September, however, is an uncertain month at best. For several days a threatening haze shrouded the distant sea line. The kildees, fluttered and shrieked over the booming surf.
Washy Gallup, meeting Louise as she strolled on the beach, prognosticated:
"Shouldn't be surprised none, Miss Lou, if we had a spell of weather.
Mebbe we'll have an airly equinoctooral. We sometimes do.
"Then ye'll hear the sea sing psalms, as the feller said, an' no mistake. Them there picture folks'll mebbe git a show at a re'l storm. That's what they been wishin' for—an' a wreck off shore. Land sakes! if they'd ever seed a ship go to pieces afore their very eyes they wouldn't ask for a second helpin'—no, ma'am!"
That evening threatening clouds rolled up from seaward and mantled the arch of the sky. The fishing boats ran to cover in the harbor before dark. The surf rumbled louder and louder along the shore.
And all night the sea mourned its dead over Gull Rocks.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE SCAR
Another fishfly (or was it the same that had droned accompaniment to Cap'n' Abe's story-telling upon a former occasion?) boomed against the dusty panes of the window while the fretful, sand-laden wind swept searchingly about the store on the Shell Road.