r you.
There's sin upon this house and trouble; you are a stranger; take your
things upon your back and go your ways to better places and to better
folk, and if you were ever minded to come back, though it were twenty
years syne, you would find me aye waiting."

"Mary Ellen," I said, "I asked you to be my wife, and you said as good
as yes. That's done for good. Wherever you are, I am; as I shall answer
to my God."

As I said the words the wind suddenly burst out raving, and then seemed
to stand still and shudder round the house of Aros. It was the first
squall, or prologue, of the coming tempest, and as we started and looked
about us, we found that a gloom, like the approach of evening, had
settled round the house.

"God pity all poor folks at sea!" she said. "We'll see no more of my
father till the morrow's morning."

And then she told me, as we sat by the fire and hearkened to the rising
gusts, of how this change had fallen upon my uncle. All last winter he
had been dark and fitful in his mind. Whenever the Roost ran high, or,
as Mary said, whenever the Merry Men were dancing, he would lie out for
hours together on the Head, if it were night, or on the top of Aros by
day, watching the tumult of the sea, and sweeping the horizon for a
sail. After February the 10th, when the wealth-bringing wreck was cast
ashore at Sandag, he had been at first unnaturally gay, and his
excitement had never fallen in degree, but only changed in kind from
dark to darker. He neglected his work, and kept Rorie idle. They two
would speak together by the hour at the gable-end, in guarded tones and
with an air of secrecy, and almost of guilt; and if she questioned
either, as at first she sometimes did, her inquiries were put aside with
confusion. Since Rorie had first remarked the fish that hung about the
ferry, his master had never set foot but once upon the mainland of the
Ross. That once--it was in the height of the springs--he had passed
dry-shod while the tide was out; but, having lingered overlong on the
far side, found himself cut off from Aros by the returning waters. It
was with a shriek of agony that he had leaped across the gut, and he had
reached home thereafter in a fever-fit of fear. A fear of the sea, a
constant haunting thought of the sea, appeared in his talk and
devotions, and even in his looks when he was silent.

Rorie alone came in to supper; but a little later my uncle appeared,
took a bottle under his arm, put some