they were the mere reconnaissance of the elements--the first light
attack of Nature upon her own weakness. By and by from the surging,
roaring depths of the woods, there suddenly reverberated to him a
deep boom as of a cannon: one of the great trees--two-forked at
the mighty summit and already burdened in each half by its tons of
timber, split in twain at the fork as though cleft by lightning;
and now only the pointed trunk stood like a funeral shaft above its
own ruins. For hours this went on: the light incessant rattling,
closest around; the creaking, straining, tearing apart as of
suffering flesh, less near; the sad, sublime booming of the forest.

Now the man would walk the floor; now drop into his chair before
the fire. His last bit of candle flickered blue, deep in the
socket, and sent up its smoke. His wood was soon burnt out: only
red coals in the bottom of the grate then, and these fast
whitening. More than once he strode across and stood over his trunk
in the shadowy corner--looking down at his books--those books that
had guided him thus far, or misguided him, who can say?

When his candle gave out and later his fire, he jerked off his
clothes and getting into bed, rolled himself in the bedclothes and
lay listening to the mournful sublimity of the storm.

Toward three o'clock the weather grew colder, the wind died down,
the booming ceased; and David, turning wearily, over, with an
impulse to prayer, but with no prayer, went to sleep.