— One —

A Bad Weather Holiday

It was a gray, windy noon at the beginning of autumn. The sky and the sea were almost the same colour. Across from the blurry horizon where they met came troops of waves that broke into white crests as they rushed at the shore. On land the trees and the smoke were greatly troubled—the trees because they would rather stand still, the smoke because it would rather ascend, while the wind kept tossing the former and beating down the latter. None of the hundreds of fishing boats belonging to the coast were to be seen, nor was a single sail visible—not even the smoke of a solitary steamer ploughing through the rain and fog south to London or north to Aberdeen.*

To the thousands who had come to Burcliff to enjoy a holiday, the weather was depressing. But whether the labour weary had days or weeks, the holiday had looked short from the beginning, and was growing shorter and shorter, while the dreary days seemed longer and longer.

The Raymounts had come to the east coast of England to enjoy the blue sky, the blue sea, and the bright sun overhead. So far, however, they had scarcely seen any of the three. Their moods were disagreeable.

They found themselves wrapped in a blanket of fog, out of which the water was every now and then squeezed down upon them in the wettest of rains. To those who hated work, this holiday, which by every right and reason belonged to them, seemed snatched away by that vague enemy against whom the grumbling of the world is continually directed. For were they not born to be happy, and how could a human being possibly fulfil that destiny in such miserable circumstances?

There are men and women who can be happy in such circumstances by securing the corner of a couch near a good fire. With the help of a good novel, they are able to forget the world around them. The noise of the waves on the sands, the storm resounding through the chimney, or the rain on the windows serves to deepen the calm of their spirits. Take the novel away, give the fire a black heart, let the smells of a lodging-house kitchen invade the sitting-room, and the man or woman who can then, on such a day, be patient and pleasant to other people, is one worth knowing. Mrs. Raymount, half the head and more than half the heart of the family staying in a certain lodging house in the forefront of Burcliff, was one of these.

It was not a large family, yet it contained perhaps as many varieties of character and temperament as some larger ones. These varieties gave rise to several ways of confronting such misfortunes as rainy weather. For misfortune it must seem to poor creatures who are slaves of the elements, especially when the weather ought to be sunny. When it is not, something is out of order, giving ground for complaint.