arms, and shrieked
and groaned their protest against it Flying boughs, like great grotesque
birds, went hurtling through the air.

As the brief March day fell towards its close, the storm seemed suddenly
to double in fury. Oak and elm went down before it bodily, torn from the
stout anchorage of many years, and before the wind had raged itself
to rest many scores of patriarchal landmarks were laid low. Roar of
tormented woods, howl of wind, crash on crash of breaking boughs or
falling trees, blended to one tune, and a plunging rain came down in
ropes rather than in lines, driven at a fierce angle.

Night fell, and the pitiless tempest raged on, but with the coming of
the darkness one sign of cheer displayed itself. From the windows of
the plain old grey-stone mansion on the eastern side of the Beacon Hill
lights began to glow, first in this chamber and then in that, until the
whole squat edifice seemed charged with warmth and comfort. The tempest
poured its full strength against the grey-stone house. It shook the
windows with its frantic hand, it shrieked and howled and roared amongst
the chimney tops and gables, it strained the hasps of the staunch oaken
doors, and the old house faced it with a broadening smile, and shone the
brighter by contrast as the night grew blacker.

In the whole roaring region there was but one man to be found abroad,
and he was making for the grey-stone house. He was a portly person with
a prosperous-looking development about the neighbourhood of the
lower waistcoat, and he was sorely tried, though he was as yet on
the sheltered side of the hill. His heavy black broadcloth was soaked
through and through, and weighed him down. The icy wet had chilled him,
and he breathed hard at every laboured step. One stiff slope of some
fifty yards had still to be surmounted before he reached the hill-top.
Twenty yards further lay the house, with all windows beaming. It was
as yet invisible to him, but in his mind's eye he could see it, and the
thought of it gave him courage. He turned his back to the plunging rain,
and paused to gather breath before he assaulted the last slope of the
hill. He had lost his hat, and the water trickled out of his hair in
rivulets.

'I've seen worse weather than any they can brew in the neighbourhood
of Beacon Hargate,' he panted to himself, 'but it's one thing to have a
good tight craft under your feet, and it's another to be bogged in the
dark, over half a mile of rotten p