lifted me above the things that I liked to watch.
Invariably, on all these drives, I was to lose interest
here unless the stars were particularly bright and
brilliant. This night I watched the lights, it is true:
how they streamed across the sky, like driving rain that
is blown into wavy streaks by impetuous wind. And they
leaped and receded, and leaped and receded again. But
while I watched, I stretched my limbs and was bent on
speed. There were a few particularly bad spots in the
road, where I could not do anything but walk the horse.
So, where the going was fair, I urged him to redoubled
effort. I remember how I reflected that the horse as yet
did not know we were so near home, this being his first
trip out; and I also remember, that my wife afterwards
told me that she had heard me a long while before I
came--had heard me talking to the horse, urging him on
and encouraging him.

Now I came to a slight bend in the road. Only half a
mile! And sure enough: there was the signal put out for
me. A lamp in one of the windows of the school--placed
so that after I turned in on the yard, I could not see
it--it might have blinded my eye, and the going is rough
there with stumps and stones. I could not see the cottage,
it stood behind the school. But the school I saw clearly
outlined against the dark blue, star-spangled sky, for
it stands on a high gravel ridge. And in the most friendly
and welcoming way it looked with its single eye across
at the nocturnal guest.