could trust. The man stared at me in astonishment, and then
pointed through the window to the blinding hail and the writhing trees.

"No horse that ever was foaled, sir," he said, "would face _that_ for
long. It's almost a miracle that the postman got here alive. He says
himself that he dursn't go back again. I'll try it, sir, if you order
me; but if an accident happens, please to remember, whatever becomes of
_me,_ that I warned you beforehand."

It was only too plain that the servant was right, and I dismissed him.
What I suffered from that one accident of the missing newspaper I am
ashamed to tell. No educated man can conceive how little his acquired
mental advantages will avail him against his natural human inheritance
of superstition, under certain circumstances of fear and suspense, until
he has passed the ordeal in his own proper person. We most of us soon
arrive at a knowledge of the extent of our strength, but we may pass a
lifetime and be still ignorant of the extent of our weakness.

Up to this time I had preserved self-control enough to hide the real
state of my feelings from our guest; but the arrival of the tenth day,
and the unexpected trial it had brought with it, found me at the end of
my resources. Jessie's acute observation soon showed her that something
had gone wrong, and she questioned me on the subject directly. My mind
was in such a state of confusion that no excuse occurred to me. I left
her precipitately, and entreated Owen and Morgan to keep her in their
company, and out of mine, for the rest of the day. My strength to
preserve my son's secret had failed me, and my only chance of resisting
the betrayal of it lay in the childish resource of keeping out of
the way. I shut myself into my room till I could bear it no longer. I
watched my opportunity, and paid stolen visits over and over again to
the barometer in the hall. I mounted to Morgan's rooms at the top of the
tower, and looked out hopelessly through rain-mist and scud for signs
of a carriage on the flooded valley-road below us. I stole down again to
the servants' hall, and questioned the old postman (half-tipsy by this
time with restorative mulled ale) about his past experience of storms
at sea; drew him into telling long, rambling, wearisome stories,
not one-tenth part of which I heard; and left him with my nervous
irritability increased tenfold by his useless attempts to interest and
inform me. Hour by hour, all through that miserable