McLagan nodded.
“Sure,” he said. And surveyed the conical, visored hood hanging down, and the many rust stains that besmirched its otherwise immaculate surface.
Then he, very deliberately, refolded it and looked squarely into his companion’s eyes.
“Makes you want to laff, Len, eh?” he said. “Don’t you do it, boy. Ther’s no feller needs to laff who sees that.”
Then his own eyes became less serious, and a twinkle of humour looked out of them.
“It’s just one of my notions. I designed it myself. And I keep it by me to remind me. I guess it won’t mean a thing to you, ever. Maybe it’ll just add another guess to the things worrying you now. Set it down a bath gown which you wear when you’re either clean or want to be clean. But it’s another meaning, another significance. It’s a symbol. That darn white gown tells me every time I look at it that human nature can’t ever be run right by academic theory or sentimental slobber. The feller that guesses to persuade human nature by argument is only one degree better than the boy in the bughouse. The notion that human nature is predominantly good is plumb busted. It hands me a story of the unutterable weakness of the modern methods by which human nature is trying to govern itself, and warns me that the only thing to bring about better conditions is to scare it plumb to death first, and beat it over the head with a club after. I didn’t mean you to see that thing, boy. But you have seen it and I don’t figure it matters any—now. Still if you reckon you’re obliged to me, why, just forget you’ve seen it. Let’s pack up all this darn junk. Gee! Ther’s a hell of a lot of it.”
Departure from the bay was delayed longer than McLagan had designed. It was delayed until the following morning by reason of one of those fierce, late-summer storms of tornado-like force, which at times descended upon the tattered coast.
It started with a rush of wind sweeping down off the hills. It came with the force of a hurricane, and set the hut creaking and groaning under its spasmodic pressure. For half an hour it battled furiously, shrieking, howling, and crashing its way through forest, and valley, and over hill-top. And then, as suddenly as it had leapt, it abated into an ominous calm.
The respite was illusive. It was sufficiently long for the men in the hut to interpret the conditions. The sudden darkening of the whole of the western sky was sufficiently indicative. Then the real storm broke. It broke in from the ocean with the rising tide, driving in direct opposition to the land wind. An electric storm, it came with sub-tropical intensity, and a fury of wind. The play of lightning was blinding; the thunderous detonations were merged into an incessant roar; and the suddenly opened heavens poured a deluge of rain upon a darkened world.