assembled in the great hall; and loud and frequent
were the ejaculations uttered, as each succeeding peal burst over their
heads. There was, however, one amongst the assemblage who seemed to
enjoy the uproar. A kindred excitement appeared to blaze in his glances,
as he looked upon the storm without. This was Peter Bradley. He stood
close by the window, and shaded not his eyes, even before the fiercest
flashes. A grin of unnatural exhilaration played upon his features, and
he seemed to exult in, and to court, the tempestuous horrors, which
affected the most hardy amongst his companions with consternation, and
made all shrink, trembling, into the recesses of the room. Peter's
conduct was not unobserved, nor his reputation for unholy dealing
forgotten. To some he was almost as much an object of dread as the storm
itself.

"Didst ever see the like o' that?" said Farmer Burtenshaw--one of the
guests, whose round, honest face good wine had recently empurpled, but
fear had now mottled white,--addressing a neighbor. "Didst ever hear of
any man that were a Christian laughing in the very face o' a
thunder-storm, with the lightnin' fit to put out his eyes, and the
rattle above ready to break the drums o' his ears? I always thought
Peter Bradley was not exactly what he ought to be, and now I am sure on
it."

"For my part, I think, Neighbor Burtenshaw," returned the other, "that
this great burst of weather's all of his raising, for in all my born
days I never see'd such a hurly-burly, and hope never to see the like of
it again. I've heard my grandfather tell of folk as could command wind
and rain; and, mayhap, Peter may have the power--we all know he can do
more nor any other man."

"We know, at all events," replied Burtenshaw, "that he lives like no
other man; that he spends night after night by himself in that dreary
churchyard; that he keeps no living thing, except an old terrier dog, in
his crazy cottage; and that he never asks a body into his house from one
year's end to another. I've never crossed his threshold these twenty
years. But," continued he mysteriously, "I happened to pass the house
one dark, dismal night, and there what dost think I see'd through the
window?"

"What--what didst see?"

"Peter Bradley sitting with a great book open on his knees; it were a
Bible, I think, and he crying like a child."

"Art sure o' that?"

"The tears were falling fast upon the leaves," returned Burtenshaw; "but
when I knocked