The Loud Halo Read Online Free PDF

he added a cautionary, ‘If the Lord spares me.’ He sounded a trifle embarrassed. ‘I’m away. Good night,’ he called, and shut the door.
    â€˜Good night!’ I rejoined and sat down at last to eat my supper.
    There was a clouding over of the sky in the late afternoon of the following day and the next morning the sun, which had shone unrestrainedly for so long, only cocked a sleepy eye before retiring beneath a canopy of grey cloud. It looked as if the spell of fine weather was coming to an end. Friday morning dawned wet and windy with the sea flouncing angrily against the rocks and with grey sweeps of rain being hurried across the bay. When I went up to the village shop to buy paraffin I espied Erchy, Hector and Tom-Tom leaning in various attitudes of disconsolation against the gable of the latter’s house. All were gazing with equal gloom at Wayfarer who was plunging and rearing at her mooring.
    â€˜You’re not going off today, then?’ I observed.
    â€˜No damty fear,’ replied Erchy. ‘That sea is goin’ to get bigger before it gets smaller.’
    â€˜There’s some big enough lumps out there already,’ said Tom-Tom. ‘I don’t fancy it myself.’
    â€˜We’re safer where we are,’ agreed Hector with glum acceptance of the situation.
    â€˜Well, here’s one who’s mighty pleased we’re not settin’ foot on the sea,’ said Erchy with a wink and a nod towards a hunched figure which squatted miserably beside him. ‘Is that not so, Johnny?’ he shouted, and in answer the figure raised a face that would normally be described as being of ‘ashen hue’. However, when one has become a burner of peat as opposed to coal it is a description one can no longer use, for ‘ashen’ would imply the complexion of a Red Indian.
    â€˜Poor Johnny Comic,’ I said. ‘Is his toothache still as bad as ever?’
    â€˜No,’ denied Erchy. ‘You cannot have toothache an’ be scared out of your life at the same time. You can only feel one or the other.’
    We were joined by Morag who was also on her way to get paraffin.
    â€˜So my brave boys has decided it’s too rough for them,’ she said by way of greeting, and the men turned away, discomfited by the derision in her voice. I picked up my can and moved away. Morag walked alongside me, a smug grin on her face.
    â€˜It doesn’t look very nice out there, does it?’ I remarked.
    â€˜Ach,’ she said disdainfully. ‘They’re not much of sailors nowadays. I’ve seen my father go out in seas three times as big as I’m seein’ out there an’ their boats not half the size either.’ She turned and gestured towards the bay. ‘I’ve known myself be out in more sea than there is now.’
    â€˜Morag,’ I demanded. ‘Have you ever been out in a sea big enough to frighten you?’
    â€˜Only once that I mind,’ she confessed with a slight grimace of shame.
    â€˜Was it rough then?’
    â€˜Ach, it was all yon big green beasts that you can see through. Comin’ straight at us they was till you thought with every one of them that the boat would never ride the next. My father made me lie down under one of the thwarts so that I wouldn’t get thrown out.’ She sighed. ‘Aye, we were caught badly that day an’ I believe I was as frightened as I’ve ever been. Mind you,’ she added hastily, ‘frightened though I was, I was never what you’d call inebriated with fear.’ She chuckled. ‘I was younger then, though, an’ I daresay I hadn’t as much sense as I have now.’
    With our cans filled with paraffin we started off for home again, stopping frequently for me to change my can from one aching arm to the other. Morag, who was carrying twice the amount of paraffin, did not put hers down for an instant and only watched my struggles with