A white umbrella and some sticks stood in one
corner, and another she saw was filled by some railway rugs spread over
dried bracken. Two coats hung on nails in the wall, and above one was
suspended a Panama hat which Barren often wore when painting. Something
moved suddenly, and, looking upon the stone floor, she saw a rat-trap with
a live rat in it. The beast was running as far as it could this way and
that, poking its nose up and trying the roof of its prison. She noticed its
snout was raw from thrusting between the wire, and she wished she could get
in to kill it. She did not know that it was a mother rat with young ones
outside squeaking faintly in the stack of mangel-wurzels; she did not know,
as it hopped round and round, that its beady eyes were glittering with a
great agony, and that the Mother of all was powerless to break down a mere
wire or two and save it.
Presently, worn and weary, Joan trudged home again, with no very happy
mind. She found food for comfort in one reflection alone: the artist had
made no special appointment for that day, and it might be that business or
an engagement at Newlyn, Penzance or elsewhere was occupying his time. She
felt it must be so, and tried hard to convince herself that he would surely
be at the usual spot upon the morrow.
So she walked home unhappy; and time, which had dragged yesterday, to-day
stood still. Before night she had lived an age; the hours of darkness were
endless, but her father's return furnished excuse for another morning of
early rising; and when Gray Michael and Tom had eaten, donned clean raiment
and returned to the sea, Joan, having seen them to the pierhead, did not go
home, but hastened straight away for Gorse Point, and arrived there earlier
than ever she had done before.
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