It happened that these weeks were wet and windy and Maggie was blown about from one end of the town to the other.There could be no denying that it was grim and ugly under these conditions.It might be that when the spring came there would be flowers in the gardens and the trees would break out into fresh green and the sands would gleam with mother-of-pearl and the sea would glitter with sunshine.
All that perhaps would come.Meanwhile there was not a house that was not hideous, the wind tore screaming down the long beaches carrying with it a flurry of tempestuous rain, whilst the sea itself moved in sluggish oily coils, dirt-grey to the grey horizon.Worst of all perhaps were the deserted buildings at other times dedicated to gaiety, ghosts of places they were with torn paper flapping against their sides and the wind tearing at their tin-plated roofs.
Then there was the desolate little station, having, it seemed, no connection with any kind of traffic-and behind all this the woods howled and creaked and whistled, derisive, provocative, the only creatures alive in all that world.
Between the Fashion and the Place the Church stood as a bridge.
Centuries ago, when Skeaton had been the merest hamlet clustered behind the beach, the Church had been there-not the present building, looking, poor thing, as though it were in a perpetual state of scarlet fever, but a shabby humble little chapel close to the sea sheltered by the sandy hill.