The strength of the impulse was really singular.  Every shriek of the blast seemed a summons, or would have seemed so had Mr. Brown been accustomed to hear the echoes of his own fancy in the wind.  Much amazed at such active benevolence, he huddled himself in his cloak, muffled his throat and ears in comforters and handkerchiefs, and, thus fortified, bade defiance to the tempest.  But the powers of the air had rather the best of the battle.  Mr. Brown was just weathering the corner by Peter Goldthwaite’s house when the hurricane caught him off his feet, tossed him face downward into a snow-bank and proceeded to bury his protuberant part beneath fresh drifts.  There seemed little hope of his reappearance earlier than the next thaw.  At the same moment his hat was snatched away and whirled aloft into some far-distant region whence no tidings have as yet returned.

Nevertheless Mr. Brown contrived to burrow a passage through the snow-drift, and with his bare head bent against the storm floundered onward to Peter’s door.  There was such a creaking and groaning and rattling, and such an ominous shaking, throughout the crazy edifice that the loudest rap would have been inaudible to those within.  He therefore entered without ceremony, and groped his way to the kitchen.  His intrusion even there was unnoticed.  Peter and Tabitha stood with their backs to the door, stooping over a large chest which apparently they had just dragged from a cavity or concealed closet on the left side of the chimney.  By the lamp in the old woman’s hand Mr. Brown saw that the chest was barred and clamped with iron, strengthened with iron plates and studded with iron nails, so as to be a fit receptacle in which the wealth of one century might be hoarded up for the wants of another.

Peter Goldthwaite was inserting a key into the lock.

“Oh, Tabitha,” cried he, with tremulous rapture, “how shall I endure the effulgence?  The gold!—­the bright, bright gold!  Methinks I can remember my last glance at it just as the iron-plated lid fell down.  And ever since, being seventy years, it has been blazing in secret and gathering its splendor against this glorious moment.  It will flash upon us like the noonday sun.”

“Then shade your eyes, Mr. Peter!” said Tabitha, with somewhat less patience than usual.  “But, for mercy’s sake, do turn the key!”

And with a strong effort of both hands Peter did force the rusty key through the intricacies of the rusty lock.  Mr. Brown, in the mean time, had drawn near and thrust his eager visage between those of the other two at the instant that Peter threw up the lid.  No sudden blaze illuminated the kitchen.

“What’s here?” exclaimed Tabitha, adjusting her spectacles and holding the lamp over the open chest.  “Old Peter Goldthwaite’s hoard of old rags!”

“Pretty much so, Tabby,” said Mr. Brown, lifting a handful of the treasure.