They were not meteors; they were too low. They were not glow-worms; they were too high. They were not will-o’-the-wisps; they were not fire-flies; they were not fire-works. What could they be? Some extraordinary and wonderful phenomenon of nature, which no philosopher had ever seen before; something which it had been reserved for him alone to discover, and which he should immortalise his name by chronicling for the benefit of posterity. Full of this idea, the scientific gentleman seized his pen again, and committed to paper sundry notes of these unparalleled appearances, with the date, day, hour, minute, and precise second at which they were visible: all of which were to form the data of a voluminous treatise of great research and deep learning, which should astonish all the atmospherical sages that ever drew breath in any part of the civilised globe.
He threw himself back in his easy chair, wrapped in contemplations of his future greatness. The mysterious light appeared more brilliantly than before: dancing, to all appearances, up and down the lane, crossing from side to side, and moving in an orbit as eccentric as comets themselves.
The scientific gentleman was a bachelor. He had no wife to call in and astonish, so he rang the bell for his servant.
“Pruffle,” said the scientific gentleman, “there is something very extraordinary in the air to-night. Did you see that?” said the scientific gentleman, pointing out of the window, as the light again became visible.
“Yes, I did, sir.”
“What do you think of it, Pruffle?”
“Think of it, sir?”
“Yes. You have been bred up in this country. What should you say was the cause of those lights, now?”
The scientific gentleman smilingly anticipated Pruffle’s reply that he could assign no cause for them at all. Pruffle meditated.