Suddenly Jennie Holmes broke into hysterical sobs, and Willie Ramsey caught Jessie in his arms as she reeled against a wooden butt.
A woman touched his arm.
“Are ye him?... Ay, she’s overwrought. Ye’d best carry her to my house while morning. Happen a two-three neighbours’ll put the rest o’ ye up. What say ye, folk?”
—And the Pillers turned their backs to the sea, filed off the breakwater, and followed the men and women of Portsannet.
SKELF-MARY.
A wise man loves the ocean,
A good man loves the hills.
I.
WITH the wearing on of the afternoon, the flat, treeless country to which for half a day I had steadily dropped had but increased in monotony, and long before nightfall I had begun to weary for other company than that of my own meditations. The road, of a reddish gravel, had begun to cross, by wooden bridges, innumerable drains and channels and narrow waterways; and that there was clay beneath it was evident no less from the wreaths and wisps of vapour that crept fantastically over carr and mere than from the sudden chills of the air, that seemed to stand in banks or to move in thick, idle currents. The clatter of the mare’s hoofs on the bridges flushed multitudes of waterfowl, that rose with harsh cries and beatings of wings; and from the number of gulls I had noticed among these while yet a little light remained, I had judged I could not be far from the sea.