The storm broke; there was a sudden shrill screeching, a
grinding, piping, whistling, and the wind hurled itself against the
house as if to level it with the ground; failing in this, it banged and
battered, making windows and doors shake like loose teeth in their
sockets. Then it swept by to wreak its fury elsewhere, and there was a
grateful lull out of which burst a peal of thunder. And now peal
followed peal, and the face of the sky, with its masses of swirling,
frothy cloud, resembled an angry sea. The lightning ripped it in fierce
zigzags, darting out hundreds of spectral fangs. It was a magnificent
sight.
Polly came running to see where he was, the child cried, Miss Tilly
opened her door by a hand's-breadth, and thrust a red, puffy face,
framed in curl-twists, through the crack. Nobody thought of sleep while
the commotion lasted, for fear of fire: once alight, these exposed
little wooden houses blazed up like heaps of shavings. The clock-hands
pointed to one before the storm showed signs of abating. Now, the rain
was pouring down, making an ear-splitting din on the iron roof and
leaping from every gutter and spout. It had turned very cold. Mahony
shivered as he got into bed.
He seemed hardly to have closed an eye when he was wakened by a loud
knocking; at the same time the wire of the night-bell was almost
wrenched in two. He sat up and looked at his watch. It wanted a few
minutes to three; the rain was still falling in torrents, the wind
sighed and moaned.
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