. The ground was now as
one flooring of glass; and as some of these small branches dropped from
the tree-tops, they were broken into fragments, like icicles, and slid
rattling away into the nearest depressions of the ground. Starting far
up in the air sometimes, they struck sheer upon other lower branches,
bringing them along also; this gathering weight in turn descended upon
others lower yet, until, so augmented, the entire mass swept downward
and fell, shivered against crystal flooring.

But soon these more trivial facts held his attention no longer: they
were the mere reconnaissance of the elements--the first light attack of
Nature upon her own weakness. By and by from the surging, roaring
depths of the woods, there suddenly reverberated to him a deep boom as
of a cannon: one of the great trees--two-forked at the mighty summit
and already burdened in each half by its tons of timber, split in twain
at the fork as though cleft by lightning; and now only the pointed
trunk stood like a funeral shaft above its own ruins. For hours this
went on: the light incessant rattling, closest around; the creaking,
straining, tearing apart as of suffering flesh, less near; the sad,
sublime booming of the forest.

Now the man would walk the floor; now drop into his chair before the
fire. His last bit of candle flickered blue, deep in the socket, and
sent up its smoke. His wood was soon burnt out: only red coals in the
bottom of the grate then, and these fast whitening. More than once he
strode across and stood over his trunk in the shadowy corner--looking
down at his books--those books that had guided him thus far, or
misguided him, who can say?

When his candle gave out and later his fire, he jerked off his clothes
and getting into bed, rolled himself in the bedclothes and lay
listening to the mournful sublimity of the storm.

Toward three o'clock the weather grew colder, the wind died down, the
booming ceased; and David, turning wearily, over, with an impulse to
prayer, but with no prayer, went to sleep.

XIV

When David awoke late and drowsily the next morning after the storm, he
lay awhile, listening. No rending, crashing, booming in the woods now,
nor rattling of his window-frames. No contemplative twitter of winter
birds about the cedars in the yard, nor caw of crow, crossing the house
chimneys toward the corn shocks. All things hushed, silent, immovable.

Following so quickly upon the sublime roar and ravage of