him. Meeting two neighboring fishermen, I took them with me. As
we approached the well-known wall, the blast blew out our lights,
and we could scarcely speak. The lightning had grown less
frequent, yet sheets of flame seemed occasionally to break over
the dark, square sides of the house, and to send a flickering
flame along the ridge-pole and eaves, like a surf of light. A
surf of water broke also behind us on the Blue Rocks, sounding as
if it pursued our very footsteps; and one of the men whispered
hoarsely to me, that a Nantucket brig had parted her cable, and
was drifting in shore.

As we entered the garden, lights gleamed in the shrubbery. To my
surprise, it was Paul and his wife, with their two oldest
children,--these last being quite delighted with the stir, and
showing so much illumination, in the lee of the house, that it
was quite a Feast of Lanterns. They seemed a little surprised at
meeting us, too; but we might as well have talked from Point
Judith to Beaver Tail as to have attempted conversation there. I
walked round the building; but a flash of lightning showed
nothing on the western piazza save a birch-tree, which lay
across, blown down by the storm. I therefore went inside, with
Paul's household, leaving the fishermen without.

Never shall I forget that search. As we went from empty room to
room, the thunder seemed rolling on the very roof, and the sharp
flashes of lightning appeared to put out our lamps and then
kindle them again. We traversed the upper regions, mounting by a
ladder to the attic; then descended into the cellar and the
wine-vault. The thorough bareness of the house, the fact that no
bright-eyed mice peeped at us from their holes, no uncouth