The sea ran high, its white foam-caps and ridges
fretting the rolling volume of it; the luggers fought their way out with
buried noses and laboring hulls; rain still held off, but it was coming
quickly, and the furze and the young grasses panted for it on Gorse Point.
Below the cliffs a wild spirit inhabited the sea fowl, and they screamed
and wheeled in many an aerial circle, now sliding with motionless
outstretched wing upon the gathering gale, now beating back against it, now
dancing in a fleet and making music far away in the foam. Upon the beach
the dry sand whipped round in little whirls and eddies where wind-gusts
caught it; the naked rocks poked shining weed-covered heads out of a low
tide, and the wet white light of them glimmered raw through the gray tones
of the atmosphere. Now and then a little cloud of dust would puff out from
the cliff-face where the wind dislodged a dry particle of stone or mould;
elsewhere Barren saw the sure-rooted samphire and tufts of sea-pink,
innocent of flowers as yet; and sometimes little squeaking dabs of down
might also be observed below where infant gulls huddled together in the
ledges outside their nests and gazed upon a condition of things as yet
beyond their experience.
Joan came presently to find the artist looking out at the sea.
"You ban't gwaine to paint, I s'pose, 'cause o' this ugly fashion weather?"
she said.
"No, sweetheart! All the gold has gone out of the world, and there is
nothing left but lead and dross.
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