"Nelson fooled, and a day's fog in the Channel! So little—and yet so much!"
[VII]
It was stormy weather. The golden-budded oaks shook their branches against a hurrying grey sky. Primroses shivered on the banks, and cold glimmers of wind-swept over the bent grass. A few early swallows skimmed against the stiff south-wester. Everywhere the woods looked gloomy and black.
Up at Stonehanger the furze rolled like a sea as Jasper and Devil Dick climbed out of the valley. Jasper came slantwise up the hill, so that he had a raking view of the terrace and the grey house with its bluff, stern chimneys. The casements shook and glittered. One thin stream of smoke was blown like a pennon from the nearest chimney.
Jasper saw a figure on the terrace, outlined against the sky. It stood there visible between two clumps of thorn-trees, and tossed its arms as though they were blown about by the wind. Its gestures were so wild and passionate that Jasper drew in under the shelter of a furze-covered bank, and watched the distant figure over the tops of the bushes.
It was Anthony Durrell. Benham could tell that by his thin, black figure and white hair. The old man was like a mad poet in a frenzy, or a prophet drunk with the spirit of prophecy. He strode up and down between the thorn-trees, waving his arms, shaking his fists, pointing toward the sea. The fragments of a voice were carried down to Jasper against the blustering of the wind.
"The man's mad!"
He reconsidered the exclamation, out of respect to Nance.
"A bit queer in the head, perhaps! Too much hanging over books. I wonder what he is shouting about? Just like Mad George, the Methodist!"
He rode on, drawing a little toward the left, so that the thorn-trees were between him and Anthony Durrell. For Jasper had not ridden to Stonehanger to waste time on a dry-as-dust scholar. He wanted to make sure of seeing somebody before Anthony Durrell could interfere.