se, to enable me to make up my mind what was
happening. My house was sliding downhill!

The wind must have blown the building from its foundations, and upon
the slippery surface of the hillside, probably lashed into liquid mud
by the pouring rain, it was making its way down toward the valley! In
a flash my mind's eye ran over the whole surface of the country beneath
me as far as I knew it. I was almost positive that there was no
precipice, no terrible chasm into which my house might fall. There was
nothing but sloping hillside, and beneath that a wide stretch of fields.

Now there was a new and sudden noise of heavy objects falling upon the
roof, and I knew what that meant: my chimney had been wrenched from its
foundations, and the upper part of it had now toppled over. I could
hear, through the storm, the bricks banging and sliding upon the
slanting roof. Continuous sounds of cracking and snapping came to me
through the closed front windows, and these were caused, I supposed, by
the destruction of the stakes of my vines as the heavy house moved over
them.

Of course, when I thoroughly understood the state of the case, my first
impulse was to spring out of bed, and, as quickly as possible, to get
out of that thumping and sliding house. But I restrained myself. The
floor might be covered with broken glass, I might not be able to find
my clothes in the darkness and in the jumble of furniture at the end of
the room, and even if I could dress myself, it would be folly to jump
out in the midst of that raging storm into a probable mass of wreckage
which I could not see. It would be far better to remain dry and warm
under my roof. There was no reason whatever to suppose that the house
would go to pieces, or that it would turn over. It must stop some time
or other, and, until it did so, I would be safer in my bed than
anywhere else. Therefore in my bed I stayed.

Sitting upright, with my feet pressed against the footboard, I listened
and felt. The noises of the storm, and the cracking and the snapping
and grinding before me and under me, still continued, although I
sometimes thought that the wind was moderating a little, and that the
strange motion was becoming more regular. I believed the house was
moving faster than when it first began its strange career, but that it
was sliding over a smooth surface. Now I noticed a succession of loud
cracks and snaps at the front of the house, and, from the character of
t