the poor genius;
his long cloak, picturesque enough in calm weather, fluttering about
uncomfortably enough, while the rain washes his long curls into swabs;
out through the old garden, between storm-swept laurels, beneath dark
groaning pines, and through a door in the wall which opens into the
lane.

The lane leads downward, on the right, into the village. He is in no
temper to meet his fellow-creatures,--even to see the comfortable
gleam through their windows, as the sailors close round the fire with
wife and child; so he turns to the left, up the deep stone-banked
lane, which leads towards the cliff, dark now as pitch, for it is
overhung, right and left, with deep oak-wood.

It is no easy matter to proceed, though, for the wind pours down the
lane as through a funnel, and the road is of slippery bare slate, worn
here and there into puddles of greasy clay, and Elsley slips back half
of every step, while his wrath, as he tires, oozes out of his heels.
Moreover, those dark trees above him, tossing their heads impatiently
against the scarcely less dark sky, strike an awe into him,--a sense
of loneliness, almost of fear. An uncanny, bad night it is; and he is
out on a bad errand; and he knows it, and wishes that he were home
again. He does not believe, of course, in those "spirits of the
storm," about whom he has so often written, any more than he does in a
great deal of his fine imagery; but still in such characters as his,
the sympathy between the moods of nature and those of the mind is
most real and important; and Dame Nature's equinoctial night wrath is
weird, gruesome, crushing, and can be faced (if it must be faced) in
real comfort only when one is going on an errand of mercy, with
a clear conscience, a light heart, a good cigar, and plenty of
Mackintosh.

So, ere Elsley had gone a quarter of a mile, he turned back, and
resolved to go in, and take up his book once more. Perhaps Lucia might
beg his pardon; and if not, why, perhaps he might beg hers. The rain
was washing the spirit out of him, as it does out of a thin-coated
horse.

Stay! What was that sound above the roar of the gale? a cannon?

He listened, turning his head right and left to escape the howling of
the wind in his ears. A minute, and another boom rose and rang aloft.
It was near, too. He almost fancied that he felt the concussion of the
air.

Another, and another; and then, in the village below, he could see
lights hurrying to and fro. A wrec