Only when she had been swimming in the fierce waves or battling
in the winds on Ben Grief with Wullie did she realize the pleasure of
hunger, and that was easily satisfied in the smoking hut when the
Hunchback raked aside the ashes and brought out roast potatoes or
toasted fish that he took down from the roof.
Not knowing other girls she had no one to talk to her about clothes.
Before Rose Lashcairn was ill she had taken great pleasure in dressing
her little girl; soft things, woven of silk and wool, came from London
for her, soft shoes and stockings and frocks of fine texture and
beautiful colour that seemed strange and exotic on Lashnagar. But these
were worn out and never replaced--except for her mother's funeral she
never wore shoes, summer or winter. Her feet and legs were brown and
quite invulnerable to stones or brambles. Her father did not realize
that she needed clothes; her aunt was too much sunk in shadows to notice
the child's appearance. And, reading her legends and romances, it was
natural that Marcella should live them and dress them. In a press in her
mother's room were clothes brought from the old grey house, the
accumulation of days when fabrics were made as heirlooms. There were
plaids and brocades and silks: there was lace from Valenciennes and
linen from Cambrai, yellow with age.
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