cted. I rose from the
breakfast-table, and went to the window to glance at the stone again.
There had been heavy rain in the night, and on the lawn was a thrush
breaking his way into the shell of a snail.

As I was turning my ring about to catch the response of the star to the
sun, I spied a keen black eye gazing at me out of the milky misty blue.
The sight startled me so that I dropped the ring, and when I picked it
up the eye was gone from it. The same moment the sun was obscured;
a dark vapour covered him, and in a minute or two the whole sky was
clouded. The air had grown sultry, and a gust of wind came suddenly.
A moment more and there was a flash of lightning, with a single sharp
thunder-clap. Then the rain fell in torrents.

I had opened the window, and stood there looking out at the precipitous
rain, when I descried a raven walking toward me over the grass, with
solemn gait, and utter disregard of the falling deluge. Suspecting who
he was, I congratulated myself that I was safe on the ground-floor. At
the same time I had a conviction that, if I were not careful, something
would happen.

He came nearer and nearer, made a profound bow, and with a sudden winged
leap stood on the window-sill. Then he stepped over the ledge, jumped
down into the room, and walked to the door. I thought he was on his way
to the library, and followed him, determined, if he went up the stair,
not to take one step after him. He turned, however, neither toward the
library nor the stair, but to a little door that gave upon a grass-patch
in a nook between two portions of the rambling old house. I made haste
to open it for him. He stepped out into its creeper-covered porch, and
stood looking at the rain, which fell like a huge thin cataract; I stood
in the door behind him. The second flash came, and was followed by a
lengthened roll of more distant thunder. He turned his head over his
shoulder and looked at me, as much as to say, "You hear that?" then
swivelled it round again, and anew contemplated the weather, apparently
with approbation. So human were his pose and carriage and the way he
kept turning his head, that I remarked almost involuntarily,

"Fine weather for the worms, Mr. Raven!"

"Yes," he answered, in the rather croaky voice I had learned to know,
"the ground will be nice for them to get out and in!--It must be a
grand time on the steppes of Uranus!" he added, with a glance upward; "I
believe it is raining there too; it was,