At Greystones Lucy sat by the open door spinning. She dreaded a thunderstorm as something supernatural. She would rather have been with Barbara at Ketel's Parlour, than alone, here, with the old woman. She lifted her eyes again and again to look at the mountain round which the blackest clouds were gathered. It seemed to draw nearer, until it stood like a black blot just beyond the barn. Then she got up and shut the door. Mistress Lynn watched the girl with keen eyes. She had noticed that Lucy's face of late had regained its colour. But there was a hard expression upon it, and her speech came slower and less gaily than of old. The old woman knew the meaning of it. She could see into Lucy's mind almost as easily as if it were laid open for her inspection. The daylight struggled and died; a grey unearthly gloom came on all things, a stillness as of death. "Are you frightened, Lucy?" asked Mistress Lynn. "Maybe it's the last day," replied the girl. The old woman's face was ghastly as the face of a corpse in the strange light which filtered through the windows. The kitchen seemed to be swallowed up by a weird sepulchral vapour. She laughed. "Get down on thy knees, Lucy Lynn," she said ironically, "get to thy knees and pray for a sinful old woman and an innocent lass. Don't forget Peter Fleming forbye. I misgive me he'll come in for a wetting if he doesn't tie wings to his heels. He went up the fells a few hours ago." "Peter! when? I didn't see him." "Why shouldsta? He came to see me, and you were in the dairy." Lucy seized the poker to stir the peats; it was heavy bar of iron and clanged like a bell when she knocked it in her nervousness and irritation against the stone jambs of the fireplace. Then she jumped up and looked in at the cow-house, where the hind was just stalling the cattle. There she saw Jan Straw, sitting with his hands on his knees, staring into vacancy. He did not seem to see her, but he laughed like a mindless creature at every rumble of distant thunder. "It's going to be a fearful storm, Tom," she said to the hind. "A regular smasher!" he replied. "You didn't see anyone coming down the fellside, did you, when you were gathering the kye?" "Nay, never a soul. Every man o' sense has got his flocks into shelter by now." Lucy returned to the kitchen. "Jan Straw's by with himself," she said. Her great-grandmother continued to knit composedly. "Look up the dale, and see if you can spy Peter," she said with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "He's old enough to look after himself," replied the girl tartly. "Then look up the dale and see if the storm has broken on Thundergay. I'm wondering about Barbara." Lucy did as she was bid. The sky was shrouded by a heavy pall, through which the sun still shone as through smoked glass. But the mountain had disappeared. Now and then it flashed into sight as the lightning played round it, then darkness swallowed it up.