energy filled his frame. He felt that he could not sleep, that to wait
idly would be simple misery, and that only in motion towards the set aim
of his fierce, excited desires, could he bear his disappointment and
shame. But the rain still came down with a volume which threatened soon
to exhaust the cisterns of the air, and in that hope he compelled
himself to wait a little.

Towards nine o'clock the great deluge seemed to slacken. The wind arose,
and there were signs of its shifting, erelong, to the northwest, which
would bring clear weather in a few hours. The night was dark, but not
pitchy; a dull phosphoric gleam overspread the under surface of the sky.
The woods were full of noises, and every gully at the roadside gave
token, by its stony rattle, of the rain-born streams.

With his face towards home and his back to the storm, Gilbert rode into
the night. The highway was but a streak of less palpable darkness; the
hills on either hand scarcely detached themselves from the low, black
ceiling of sky behind them. Sometimes the light of a farm-house window
sparkled faintly, like a glow-worm, but whether far or near, he could
not tell; he only knew how blest must be the owner, sitting with wife
and children around his secure hearthstone,--how wretched his own life,
cast adrift in the darkness,--wife, home, and future, things of doubt!

He had lost more than money; and his wretchedness will not seem unmanly
when we remember the steady strain and struggle of his previous life. As
there is nothing more stimulating to human patience, and courage, and
energy, than the certain prospect of relief at the end, so there is
nothing more depressing than to see that relief suddenly snatched away,
and the same round of toil thrust again under one's feet! This is the
fate of Tantalus and Sisyphus in one.