"Nay," said his mother, "I don't know. You should know better about such things than I—you that's always listening to the winds and hearing what they've got to say."
Gratian looked up, a little surprised.
"What makes you say that, mother?" he asked.
Mrs. Conyfer laughed a little.
"I scarcely know," she said. "We always said of you when you were a baby that you seemed to hear words in the wind—you were always content to lie still, no matter how long you were left, if only the wind were blowing. And it seems to me even now that you're always happiest and best when there's wind about, though it's maybe only a fancy of mine."
But Gratian looked pleased.
"No, mother," he said, "I don't think it's a fancy. I think myself it's quite true."
And he pulled off his cap as he spoke and let the wind blow his hair about, and lifted up his face as if inviting its caresses.
"It's getting up," he said. "But I think we'll get home before the rain comes."