Two
considerations kept him from this holiday-taking. In the first place, in
fear of a case of illness he did not like to leave the island while its
benefactress was away; and, secondly, it was reported that all visitors
from The Cloud were ruthlessly shut out from the houses upon the other
islands, because of the unreasoning terror which had grown concerning
the disease. Whether he, who carried money in his pocket, would be shut
out from these neighbouring islands also, he did not care to inquire. He
felt too angry with the way the inhabitants behaved to have any dealings
with them.
The only means of amusement that remained to Caius in these days were
his horse and a gun that O'Shea lent him. With his lunch in his pocket,
he rode upon the ice as far as he might go and return the same day. He
followed the roads that led by the shores of the other islands; or,
where the wind had swept all depth of snow from the ice, he took a path
according to his own fancy on the untrodden whiteness.
Colonies of Arctic gulls harboured on the island, and the herring gulls
remained through the winter; these, where he could get near their rocks
upon the ice, he at first took delight in shooting; but he soon lost the
zest for this sport, for the birds gave themselves to his gun too
easily. He was capable of deriving pleasure from them other than in
their slaughter, and often he rode under their rocky homes, noting how
dark their white plumage looked against their white resting-places,
where groups of them huddled together upon the icy battlements and
snowdrift towers of the castles that the frost had built them.
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