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(13)

swayed. Through the short summer nights and the long summer
days when the empty rooms seemed to murmur with the echoes of
the fields and the hum of flies the long streamer waved gently,
swayed aimlessly; while the sun so striped and barred the rooms
and filled them with yellow haze that Mrs. McNab when she broke
in and lurched about looked like a tropical fish oaring its way
through sun-lanced waters.
      But slumber and sleep though it might there came later in
the summer ominous sounds like the measured blows of hammers
dulled on felt, which, with their repeated shocks still further
loosened the shawl and cracked the tea cups. Now and again some
glass tinkled in the cupboard as if a giant voice had shrieked
so loud in its agony that tumblers stood inside a cupboard
vibrated too. Then again silence fell; and then, night after
night, and sometimes in plain midday when the roses were bright
and light turned on the wall its shape clearly there seemed to
drop into this silence and indifference and clarity the thud of
something falling.
      At that seasonseason those who had gone down to pace the beach and
ask of the sea and sky what message they reported or what vision
they affirmed had to consider among the usual tokens of divine
bounty - for instance the sunset on the sea, the pallor of dawn,
the moon rising, fishing boats against the moon, something
isolated, out of harmony with this serenity; the silent
apparition of an ashen coloured ship for instance; a froth and
stain upon the bland surface of the sea as if something had

 


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