Not till he reached the door did he notice a sound that filled the valley.  A strange, high-pitched note, like a hundred curry-fowl crying at once—­a wail, as of spirits in hell.  Now from one direction, now from another; now rising, now falling, the weird, unearthly shriek seemed everywhere at once, increasing each moment in force and shrillness.  As the old man, holding the baby close to him, looked up and listened, fear struck his lips with a sudden trembling.  Opposite to him he saw a strange sight.  Halfway up the mountain, on the other side of the valley, not a leaf on the trees was stirring:  the lower slopes lay basking in the sunshine, and the shadows of fleeting clouds only added to the peaceful beauty of the scene; while the trees above were raging bacchanals, whirling, swaying, tossing their long arms in futile agony, as though possessed by some unseen demoniacal power.

In a moment the old man knew what had befallen him.  The bewitched smoke, the shrieking spirits of the air, the motionless valley, and the maddened trees, of all these he had heard before, for he had listened to tales of the tornado in the valley, and knew what it meant to the defenceless dwellers on the upper slopes.  The skirts of the fury were touching him even now; a sudden gust swept by; to draw breath for the moment was impossible, and his unsteady balance would soon have been overthrown; he was forced to cling to the doorpost, still holding the baby close.  But the quiet, comprehending expression never left his face; he knew what was to be done, and he meant to do it; there might be time.

He set down the baby in the cradle, took off his coat, grasped a spade in his shaking hand, and hobbled across the patch of open ground to a spot as far distant as possible both from the cottage and from the borders of the wood; the maddened wind was wailing itself away in the distance, and happily for a few minutes there was a lull in the air.  He could hear the baby crying, left alone in the cottage.  He never looked off from his work, but went on digging a hole in the form of a little grave.  The surface of the ground was hard, and the old man was short-winded; he could hardly gather enough force to drive the spade in.  Before long, however, a few inches of the upper crust were removed from a space about three feet in length.  The digging in the softer earth would now be easier and more rapid.  As he worked on, a few heavy drops of rain fell.  He looked up and saw the whole sky, lately full of sunlight, a mass of driving, ink-black clouds, while the shriek of the hurricane was heard again in the distance.  The baby’s cry was drowned by it.  The hole was as yet only half a foot deep.  At the next thrust the spade struck on a slanting ledge of slaty rock.  No further progress could be made there; the trench must be dug in a different direction.  Once more the old man, panting heavily, drove the spade into the hard ground, and in two or three minutes had so far altered the position of the hole that the rock was avoided.  The gale was increasing every moment, and at times he could hardly keep his feet.