“Grrreat Scott!” ejaculated Mr. Schuler, who had learned some English expressions from his pupils.  He was returning through the hall from a hobbling excursion to make sure that all the windows down stairs were closed.  The candle dropped from his hand and he was left in the dark.  His crutch slid from under his arm, and he was forced to cling to a table for support and call for his wife to come and find it for him.

Mrs. Schuler reached him from the kitchen where she had been attending to the fastenings of the back door.  Fortunately her light had survived the gusty attack and she was able to help her husband to his prop.

“What is it?” she cried breathlessly, “Is the house falling?  Did you ever hear such a noise!”

Mr. Schuler never had.  The outcry upstairs was increased by the shrieks of Sheila who had slept until the last shock and who woke at last to add her penetrating voice to the pandemonium.

“Do you smell something queer?” asked Mrs. Schuler.  “Do you think that was a lightning-bolt and it set the house on fire?”

Her husband shook his head doubtfully.  “The lightning has gone by,” he said, but they went together on a tour of investigation.

Nothing was burning in the kitchen, but the rays of the uplifted candle showed a zigzag crack on the wall behind the stove.

“That wall is the chimney,” said Mrs. Schuler.  “Something has happened to the chimney.”

“Let’s go into the dining-room and see if anything shows there.”

Into the dining-room they went.  An acrid smell filled the room, and as they entered a smouldering flame in the fireplace burst into a blaze, from the draught of the door.  Its fuel consisted only of some trash that had been tossed into the fireplace and hidden behind the fresh pine boughs that filled the opening through the summer.  The drinking water in the pitcher on the table was enough to put an end to it.

“It’s hardly large enough to bother to put out,” exclaimed Mr. Schuler, “if it weren’t that the chimney seems to be so shaken that the flames might work through somewhere and set fire to the woodwork.”

“There’s no doubt about something serious having happened to the chimney,” and Mrs. Schuler stooped and pushed back three or four bricks that had tumbled forward on to the hearth.

“The back is cracked,” she announced from her knees.  “With that big crack on the kitchen side I rather think Moya had better use the oil stove until Mr. Emerson can send a bricklayer to examine the chimney.”

“Everything but this seems all right here; you’d better go up and try to calm the women,” advised Mr. Schuler.

The wind storm was dying down and the inmates of Rose House were becoming quieter as the din outside moderated.  The Matron went from room to room bringing comfort and courage as her candle shone upon one frightened face after another.

“It’s all over; there’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said over and over again.  Only to Moya did she tell what had happened to the chimney, so that she might prepare breakfast on the oil stove.