I had frequently
thought before. I would build a neat little house on my grounds, not
very far away from my house, but not too near, and I would ask Jack
Brandiger to come there and live. Jack was a friend of mine who was
reading law in the town, and it seemed to me that it would be much more
pleasant, and even more profitable, to read law on a pretty hillside
overlooking a charming valley, with woods and mountains behind and
above him, where he could ramble to his heart's content.

I had thought of asking Jack to come and live with me, but this idea I
soon dismissed. I am a very particular person, and Jack was not. He
left his pipes about in all sorts of places--sometimes when they were
still lighted. When he came to see me he was quite as likely to put
his hat over the inkstand as to put it anywhere else. But if Jack
lived at a little distance, and we could go backward and forward to see
each other whenever we pleased, that would be quite another thing. He
could do as he pleased in his own house, and I could do as I pleased in
mine, and we might have many pleasant evenings together. This was a
cheering idea, and I was planning how we might arrange with the negro
woman who managed my household affairs to attend also to those of Jack
when I fell asleep.

I did not sleep long before I was awakened by the increased violence of
the storm. My house shook with the fury of the wind.

The rain seemed to be pouring on its roof and northern side as if there
were a waterfall above us, and every now and then I could hear a shower
of hailstones rattling against the shutters. My bedroom was one of the
rooms on the lower floor, and even there I could hear the pounding of
the deluge and the hailstones upon the roof.

All this was very doleful, and had a tendency to depress the spirits of
a man awake and alone in a good-sized house. But I shook off this
depression. It was, not agreeable to be up here by myself in such a
terrible storm, but there was nothing to be afraid of, as my house was
new and very strongly built, being constructed of logs, weather-boarded
outside and ceiled within. It would require a hurricane to blow off
the roof, and I believed my shutters to be hail-proof. So, as there
was no reason to stay awake, I turned over and went to sleep.

I do not know how long it was before I was awakened again, this time
not by the noise of the storm, but by a curious movement of my
bedstead. I had once felt the