The rattling showers rushed on the blast,
The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed.
Deep, lang and loud the tempest bellowed,
From heav’n the clouds pour all their floods,
The doubling storm roars through the woods.—Burns.
Light here and there, like sparks of fire in seas of darkness. Darkness within and without. The two red lamps that flanked the coachman’s seat, the single lantern carried by the guard, and the bright point of Dick’s cigar as he sat smoking on the top of the coach, only seemed by contrast to make that darkness deeper.
The coach slowly clawed up a long hill at the summit of which was a country inn, with its usual accessories of grocery-store, blacksmith’s shop and post-office.
Here all was cheerful bustle, with the glancing lights, the voices of men, the tramp of steeds, and all the merry movement of a way station.
And here the coach stopped to change horses.
The outside passenger jumped down and went into the little bar-room of the inn, which Drusilla could see from her window was half filled with country loafers and village politicians, drinking, smoking, discussing the news, and settling the elections. In two minutes the outside passenger was “hail fellow, well met,” with every one of them, and generously treating the whole company with the best in the bar. Ah, poor Dick!