He lay back in his chair, wondering whether it were late; his eyes were half closed, and he did not make the effort and rouse himself.  He could hear the stormy noise of the wind, and the sound reminded him of the half-forgotten days.  He thought of his boyhood, and the old rectory, and the great elms that surrounded it.  There was something pleasant in the consciousness that he was still half dreaming; he knew he could wake up whenever he pleased, but for the moment he amused himself by the pretence that he was a little boy again, tired with his rambles and the keen air of the hills.  He remembered how he would sometimes wake up in the dark at midnight, and listen sleepily for a moment to the rush of the wind straining and crying amongst the trees, and hear it beat upon the walls, and then he would fall to dreams again, happy in his warm, snug bed.

The wind grew louder, and the windows rattled.  He half opened his eyes and shut them again, determined to cherish that sensation of long ago.  He felt tired and heavy with sleep; he imagined that he was exhausted by some effort; he had, perhaps, been writing furiously without rest.  He could not recollect at the instant what the work had been; it would be delightful to read the pages when he had made up his mind to bestir himself.

Surely that was the noise of boughs, swaying and grinding in the wind.  He remembered one night at home when such a sound had roused him suddenly from a deep sweet sleep.  There was a rushing and beating as of wings upon the air, and a heavy dreary noise, like thunder far away upon the mountain.  He had got out of bed and looked from behind the blind to see what was abroad.  He remembered the strange sight he had seen, and he pretended it would be just the same if he cared to look out now.  There were clouds flying awfully from before the moon, and a pale light that made the familiar land look strange and terrible.  The blast of wind came with a great shriek, and the trees tossed and bowed and quivered; the wood was scourged and horrible, and the night air was ghastly with a confused tumult, and voices as of a host.  A huge black cloud rolled across the heaven from the west and covered up the moon, and there came a torrent of bitter hissing rain.

It was all a vivid picture to him as he sat in his chair, unwilling to wake.  Even as he let his mind stray back to that night of the past years, the rain beat sharply on the window-panes, and though there were no trees in the grey suburban street, he heard distinctly the crash of boughs.  He wandered vaguely from thought to thought, groping indistinctly amongst memories, like a man trying to cross from door to door in a darkened unfamiliar room.  But, no doubt, if he were to look out, by some magic the whole scene would be displayed before him.  He would not see the curve of monotonous two-storied houses, with here and there a white blind, a patch of light, and shadows appearing and vanishing, not the rain plashing in the muddy road, not the amber of the gas-lamp opposite, but the wild moonlight poured on the dearly loved country; far away the dim circle of the hills and woods, and beneath him the tossing trees about the lawn, and the wood heaving under the fury of the wind.