done whilst unmarried and free to speak
as warmly as she chose.

He was disturbed in his meditation by a grating noise from the
coach-house. It was the vane on the roof turning round, and this
change in the wind was the signal for a disastrous rain.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

RAIN--ONE SOLITARY MEETS ANOTHER

It was now five o'clock, and the dawn was promising to break in hues
of drab and ash.

The air changed its temperature and stirred itself more vigorously.
Cool breezes coursed in transparent eddies round Oak's face. The
wind shifted yet a point or two and blew stronger. In ten minutes
every wind of heaven seemed to be roaming at large. Some of the
thatching on the wheat-stacks was now whirled fantastically aloft,
and had to be replaced and weighted with some rails that lay near at
hand. This done, Oak slaved away again at the barley. A huge drop
of rain smote his face, the wind snarled round every corner, the
trees rocked to the bases of their trunks, and the twigs clashed in
strife. Driving in spars at any point and on any system, inch by
inch he covered more and more safely from ruin this distracting
impersonation of seven hundred pounds. The rain came on in earnest,
and Oak soon felt the water to be tracking cold and clammy routes
down his back. Ultimately he was reduced well-nigh to a homogeneous
sop, and the dyes of his clothes trickled down and stood in a pool
at the foot of the ladder. The rain stretched obliquely through the
dull atmosphere in liquid spines, unbroken in continuity between
their beginnings in the clouds and their points in him.

Oak suddenly remembered that eight months before this time he had
been fighting against fire in the same spot as desperately as he
was fighting against water now--and for a futile love of the same
woman. As for her--But Oak was generous and true, and dismissed
his reflections.

It was about seven o'clock in the dark leaden morning when Gabriel
came down from the last stack, and thankfully exclaimed, "It is
done!" He was drenched, weary, and sad, and yet not so sad as
drenched and weary, for he was cheered by a sense of success in a
good cause.

Faint sounds came from the barn, and he looked that way. Figures
stepped singly and in pairs through the doors--all walking awkwardly,
and abashed, save the foremost, who wore a red jacket, and advanced
with his hands in his pockets, whistling. The others shambled after
with a conscience-stricken air