Not such power of wind has blown for many a winter
night. Chimneys topple in the streets, and people
hold to posts and corners, and to one another, to
keep themselves upon their feet. The violent
rushes abate not, but increase in frequency and fury
until at midnight, when the streets are empty, the
storm goes thundering along them, rattling at all
the latches, and tearing at all the shutters, as if
warning the people to get up and fly with it, rather
than have the roofs brought down upon their brains.
Still, the red light burns steadily. Nothing
is steady but the red light.
All through the night the wind blows, and abates not.
But early in the morning, when there is barely enough
light in the east to dim the stars, it begins to lull.
From that time, with occasional wild charges, like
a wounded monster dying, it drops and sinks; and at
full daylight it is dead.
It is then seen that the hands of the Cathedral clock
are torn off; that lead from the roof has been stripped
away, rolled up, and blown into the Close; and that
some stones have been displaced upon the summit of
the great tower. Christmas morning though it
be, it is necessary to send up workmen, to ascertain
the extent of the damage done. These, led by
Durdles, go aloft; while Mr. Tope and a crowd of early
idlers gather down in Minor Canon Corner, shading
their eyes and watching for their appearance up there.
This cluster is suddenly broken and put aside by the
hands of Mr. Jasper; all the gazing eyes are brought
down to the earth by his loudly inquiring of Mr. Crisparkle,
at an open window:
‘He has not been here. Is he not with
you?’
’No. He went down to the river last night,
with Mr. Neville, to look at the storm, and has not
been back. Call Mr. Neville!’
‘He left this morning, early.’
‘Left this morning early? Let me in! let
me in!’
There is no more looking up at the tower, now.
All the assembled eyes are turned on Mr. Jasper,
white, half-dressed, panting, and clinging to the
rail before the Minor Canon’s house.
Neville Landless had started so early and walked at
so good a pace, that when the church-bells began to
ring in Cloisterham for morning service, he was eight
miles away. As he wanted his breakfast by that
time, having set forth on a crust of bread, he stopped
at the next roadside tavern to refresh.
Visitors in want of breakfast—unless they
were horses or cattle, for which class of guests there
was preparation enough in the way of water-trough
and hay—were so unusual at the sign of The
Tilted Wagon, that it took a long time to get the
wagon into the track of tea and toast and bacon.
Neville in the interval, sitting in a sanded parlour,
wondering in how long a time after he had gone, the
sneezy fire of damp fagots would begin to make somebody
else warm.
