no longer snowing, the wind was, if anything, stronger than ever and the seaward view from his bedroom window was a picture of frothing gray and white, of flying spray and leaping waves, and on the landward side the pines were bending and threshing as if they were being torn in pieces.  He came downstairs, somewhat nervous and a trifle excited, to find Mr. Bloomer, garbed in oilskins and sou’wester, standing upon the mat just inside the dining room door.  Zacheus, it developed, had come over to borrow some coffee, the supply at the light having run short.  As Galusha entered, a more than usually savage blast rushed shrieking over the house, threatening, so it seemed to Mr. Bangs, to tear every shingle from the roof.

“Goodness gracious!” exclaimed Galusha.  “Dear me, what a terrible storm this is!”

Zacheus regarded him calmly.  “Commenced about ten last night,” he observed.  “Been breezin’ on steady ever since.  Be quite consider’ble gale if it keeps up.”

Mr. Bangs looked at him with amazement.

“If it keeps up!” he repeated.  “Isn’t it a gale now?”

Zach shook his head.

“Not a reg’lar gale, ’tain’t,” he said.  “Alongside of some gales I’ve seen this one ain’t nothin’ but a tops’l breeze.  Do you remember the storm the night the Portland was lost, Martha?”

Miss Phipps, who had come in from the kitchen with a can of coffee in her hand, shuddered.

“Indeed I do, Zacheus,” she said; “don’t remind me of it.”

“Why, dear me, was it worse than this one?” asked Galusha.

Martha smiled.  “It blew the roof off the barn here,” she said, “and blew down both chimneys on the house and both over at Cap’n Jeth’s.  So far as that goes we had plenty of company, for there were nineteen chimneys down along the main road in Wellmouth.  And trees—­mercy! how the poor trees suffered!  East Wellmouth lost thirty-two big silver-leafs and the only two elms it had.  Set out over a hundred years ago, those elms were.”

“Spray from the breakers flew clear over the top of the bank here,” said Zach.  “That’s some h’ist for spray, hundred and odd feet.  I wan’t here to see it, myself, but Cap’n Jeth told me.”

“You were in a more comfortable place, I hope,” observed Galusha.

“Um—­we-ell, that’s accordin’ to what you call comf’table.  I was aboard the Hog’s Back lightship, that’s where I was.”

“Dear, dear!  Is it possible?”

“Um-hm.  Possible enough that I was there, and one spell it looked impossible that I’d ever be anywheres else.  Godfreys, what a night that was!  Whew!  Godfreys domino!”

Primmie, who had also come in from the kitchen, was listening, open-mouthed.

“I bet you that lightship pitched up and down somethin’ terrible, didn’t it, Zach?” she asked.

Zacheus looked at her solemnly.  “Pitched?” he repeated, after a moment’s contemplation.  “No, no, she didn’t pitch none.”