It is no easy matter to proceed, though, for the wind pours down the lane as through a funnel, and the road is of slippery bare slate, worn here and there into puddles of greasy clay, and Elsley slips back half of every step, while his wrath, as he tires, oozes out of his heels.  Moreover, those dark trees above him, tossing their heads impatiently against the scarcely less dark sky, strike an awe into him,—­a sense of loneliness, almost of fear.  An uncanny, bad night it is; and he is out on a bad errand; and he knows it, and wishes that he were home again.  He does not believe, of course, in those “spirits of the storm,” about whom he has so often written, any more than he does in a great deal of his fine imagery; but still in such characters as his, the sympathy between the moods of nature and those of the mind is most real and important; and Dame Nature’s equinoctial night wrath is weird, gruesome, crushing, and can be faced (if it must be faced) in real comfort only when one is going on an errand of mercy, with a clear conscience, a light heart, a good cigar, and plenty of Mackintosh.

So, ere Elsley had gone a quarter of a mile, he turned back, and resolved to go in, and take up his book once more.  Perhaps Lucia might beg his pardon; and if not, why, perhaps he might beg hers.  The rain was washing the spirit out of him, as it does out of a thin-coated horse.

Stay!  What was that sound above the roar of the gale? a cannon?

He listened, turning his head right and left to escape the howling of the wind in his ears.  A minute, and another boom rose and rang aloft.  It was near, too.  He almost fancied that he felt the concussion of the air.

Another, and another; and then, in the village below, he could see lights hurrying to and fro.  A wreck at sea?  He turned again up the lane.  He had never seen a wreck.  What an opportunity for a poet; and on such a night too:  it would be magnificent if the moon would but come out!  Just the scene, too, for his excited temper!  He will work on upward, let it blow and rain as it may.  He is not disappointed.  Ere he has gone a hundred yards, a mass of dripping oil-skins runs full butt against him, knocking him against the bank; and, by the clank of weapons, he recognises the coast-guard watchman.

“Hillo!—­who’s that?  Beg your pardon, sir,” as the man recognises Elsley’s voice.

“What is it?—­what are the guns?”

“God knows, sir!  Overright the Chough and Crow; on ’em, I’m afeard.  There they go again!—­hard up, poor souls!  God help them!” and the man runs shouting down the lane.

Another gun, and another; but long ere Elsley reaches the cliff, they are silent; and nothing is to be heard but the noise of the storm, which, loud as it was below among the wood, is almost intolerable now that he is on the open down.