“What’s that?” said Parish suddenly. “Listen!”

“High tide,” said Watchman, “it’s the surf breaking on Coombe Rock.”

“No, it’s not. Listen.”

And into the silence came a vague gigantic rumour.

“Isn’t it thunder?” asked Parish.

The others listened for a moment but made no answer.

“What a climate!” added Parish.

The village outside the inn seemed very quiet. The evening air was sultry. No breath of wind stirred the curtains at the open windows. When, in a minute or two, somebody walked round the building, the footsteps sounded unnaturally loud. Another and more imperative muttering broke the quiet.

Cubitt said nervously: “It’s as if a giant, miles away on Dartmoor, was shaking an iron tray.”

“That’s exactly how they work thunder in the business,” volunteered Parish.

“The business,” Watchman said with violent irritation. “What business? Is there only one business?”

“What the hell’s gone wrong with you?” asked Parish.

“Nothing. The atmosphere,” said Watchman.

“I hate thunder-storms,” said Cubitt quickly. “They make me feel as if all my nerves were on the surface. A loathsome feeling.”

“I rather like them,” said Watchman.

“And that’s the end of that conversation,” said Parish with a glance at Cubitt.

Watchman got up and moved into the window. Mrs. Ives came in with a tray.

“Storm coming up?” Parish suggested.

“ ’Ess, sir. Very black outside,” said Mrs. Ives.

The next roll of thunder lasted twice as long as the others and ended in a violent tympanic rattle. Mrs. Ives cleared the table and went away. Cubitt moved into the inglenook and leant his elbows on the mantelpiece. The room had grown darker. A flight of gulls, making for the sea, passed clamorously over the village. Watchman pulled back the curtains and leant over the window-sill. Heavy drops of rain had begun to fall. They hit the cobblestones of the inn yard with loud slaps.

“Here comes the rain,” said Parish unnecessarily.

Old Abel Pomeroy came into the Public from the far door. He began to shut the windows and called through into the Private:

“We’m in for a black storm, souls.”

A glint of lightning flickered in the yard outside. Parish stood up, scraping his chair-legs on the floor.

“They say,” said Parish, “that if you count the seconds between the flash and the thunder it gives you the distance—”

A peal of thunder rolled up a steep crescendo.

“—the distance away in fifths of a mile,” ended Parish.

“Do shut up, Seb,” implored Watchman, not too unkindly.

“Damn it all,” said Parish, “I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with you. Do you, Norman?”

Abel Pomeroy came through the bar into the tap-room.

“Be colder soon I reckon,” he said. “If you’d like a fire, gentlemen—”

“We’ll light it, Abel, if we want it,” said Cubitt.

“Good enough, sir.” Abel looked from Cubitt and Parish to Watchman who still leant over the window-sill.

“She’ll come bouncing and teeming through that window, Mr. Watchman, once she do break out. Proper deluge she’ll be.”

“All right, Abel. I’ll look after the window.”

A livid whiteness flickered outside. Cubitt and Parish had a momentary picture of Watchman in silhouette against a background of inn yard and houses. A second later the thunder broke in two outrageous claps. Then, in a mounting roar, the rain came down.

“Yurr she comes,” said Abel.

He switched on the light and crossed to the door into the passage.

“Reckon Mr. Legge’ll bide to-night, after all,” said Abel.

Watchman spun round.

“Is Mr. Legge going away?” he asked.

“He’m called away on business, sir, to Illington. But that lil’ car of his leaks like a lobster-pot. Reckon the man’d better wait till to-morrow. I must look to the gutters or us’ll have the rain coming in through upstairs ceilings.”

He went out.

The evening was now filled with the sound of rain and thunder. Watchman shut the window and came into the room. His head was wet.

He said: “It’s much colder. We might have that fire.”

Cubitt lit the fire and they watched the first flames rise uncertainly among the driftwood.

“The rain’s coming down the chimney,” said Parish. “Hullo! Who’s this?”

The tap-room door opened slowly. There, on the threshold, stood the Honourable Violet Darragh, dripping like a soused hen. Her cotton dress was gummed to her person with such precision that it might as well have melted. Her curls were flattened into streaks, and from the brim of her hat poured little rivers that rushed together at the base of her neck, and, taking the way of least resistance, streamed centrally to her waist where they deployed and ran divergently to the floor. With one hand she held a canvas hold-all, with the other a piece of paper that still bore streaks of cobalt-blue and veridian across its pulpy surface. She might have been an illustration from one of the more Rabelaisian pages of La Vie Parisienne.

“My dear Miss Darragh!” ejaculated Watchman.

“Ah, look at me!” said Miss Darragh. “What a pickle I’m in, and me picture ruined. I was determined to finish it and I stayed on till the thunder and lightning drove me away in terror of me life, and when I emerged from the tunnel didn’t it break over me like the entire contents of the ocean? Well, I’ll go up now, and change, for I must look a terrible old sight.”

She glanced down at herself, gasped, cast a comical glance at the three men, and bolted.

Will Pomeroy and two companions entered the Public from the street door. They wore oil-skin hats and coats, and their boots squelched on the floorboards. Will went into the bar and served out drinks. Parish leant over the private bar and gave them good-evening.

“You seem to have caught it in the neck,” he observed.

“That’s right, Mr. Parish,” said Will. “She’s a proper masterpiece. The surface water’ll be pouring through the tunnel if she keeps going at this gait. Here you are, chaps, I’m going to change.”

He went through the Private into the house, leaving a wet trail behind him. They heard him at the telephone in the passage. He had left the door open and his voice carried above the sound of the storm.

“That you, Dessy? Dessy, this storm’s a terror. You’d better not drive that old car over to-night. Tunnel’ll be a running stream. It’s not safe.”

Watchman began to whistle under his breath. Abel returned and took Will’s place in the bar.

“I’d walk over, myself,” Will was saying, “only I can’t leave Father single-handed. We’ll have a crowd in, likely, with this weather.”

“I’m going to have a drink,” said Watchman suddenly.

“Walk?” said Will. “You’re not scared of lightning, then? Good enough, and nobody better pleased than I am. I’ll lend you a sweater and — Dessy, you’d better warn them you’ll likely stay the night. Why not? So I do, then, and you’ll find it out, my dear. I’ll come a fetch along the way to meet you.”

The receiver clicked. Will stuck his head round the door.

“Dessy’s walking over, Dad. I’ll go through the tunnel to meet her. Have you seen Bob Legge?”

“He said he’d be up to Illington to-night, sonny.”

“He’ll never make it. Has he left?”

“In his room, yet, I fancy.”

“I’ll see,” said Will. “I’ve told Dessy she’d better stay the night.”

“Very welcome, I’m sure. Ask Mrs. Ives to make a room ready.”

“So I will, then,” said Will and disappeared.

“Walking over!” said Abel. “A matter of two miles it is, from yurr to Cary Edge. Wonderful what love’ll do, gentlemen, ’bain’t it?”

“Amazing,” said Watchman. “Is nobody else going to drink?”

ii

By eight o’clock the public tap was full and the private nearly so. Decima Moore and Will had looked in, but at the moment were closeted, upstairs with Mr. Legge who had apparently decided not to go to Illington. Miss Darragh came down in dry clothes with her curls rubbed up, and sat writing letters by the fire.