A MIDNIGHT TEMPEST
As far as possible, the prudent Leonard, who was commander-in-chief of
the harvest campaign, had made everything snug before the Fourth of July,
which Alf ushered in with untimely patriotic fervor. Almost before the
first bird had taken its head from under its wing to look for the dawn,
he had fired a salute from a little brass cannon. Not very long afterward
the mountains up and down the river were echoing with the thunder of the
guns at West Point and Newburgh. The day bade fair to justify its
proverbial character for sultriness. Even in the early morning the air
was languid and the heat oppressive. The sun was but a few hours high
before the song of the birds almost ceased, with the exception of the
somewhat sleepy whistling of the orioles. They are half tropical in
nature as well as plumage, and their manner during the heat of the day is
like that of languid Southern beauties. They kept flitting here and there
through their leafy retirement in a mild form of restlessness, exchanging
soft notes--pretty nonsense, no doubt--which often terminated abruptly,
as if they had not energy enough to complete the brief strain attempted.
Alf, with his Chinese crackers and his cannon, and Johnnie and Ned, with
their torpedoes, kept things lively during the forenoon, but their elders
were disposed to lounge and rest. The cherry-trees, laden with black and
white ox-hearts, were visited. One of the former variety was fairly
sombre with the abundance of its dark-hued fruit, and Amy's red lips grew
purple as Burt threw her down the largest and ripest from the topmost
boughs. Webb, carrying a little basket lined with grapevine leaves,
gleaned the long row of Antwerp raspberries. The first that ripen of this
kind are the finest and most delicious, and their strong aroma announced
his approach long before he reached the house. His favorite Triomphe de
Grand strawberries, that had supplied the table three weeks before, were
still yielding a fair amount of fruit, and his mother was never without
her dainty dish of pale red berries, to which the sun had been adding
sweetness with the advancing season until nature's combination left
nothing to be desired.
By noon the heat was oppressive, and Alf and Ned were rolling on the
grass under a tree, quite satiated for a time with two elements of a
boy's elysium, fire-crackers and cherries. The family gathered in the
wide hall, through the open doors of which was a slight draught of air.
All had donned their coolest costumes, and their talk was quite as
languid as the occasional notes and chirpings of the birds without. Amy
was reading a magazine in a very desultory way, her eyelids drooping over
every page before it was finished, Webb and Burt furtively admiring the
exquisite hues that the heat brought into her face, and the soft lustre
of her eyes. Old Mr. Clifford nodded over his newspaper until his
spectacles clattered to the floor, at which they all laughed, and asked
for the news. His invalid wife lay upon the sofa in dreamy, painless
repose. To her the time was like a long, quiet nooning by the wayside of
life, with all her loved band around her, and her large, dark eyes rested
on one and another in loving, lingering glances--each so different, yet
each so dear! Sensible Leonard was losing no time, but was audibly
resting in a great wooden rocking-chair at the further end of the hall.
Maggie only, the presiding genius of the household, was not wilted by the
heat. She flitted in and out occasionally, looking almost girlish in her
white wrapper. She had the art of keeping house, of banishing dust and
disorder without becoming an embodiment of dishevelled disorder herself.
No matter what she was doing, she always appeared trim and neat, and in
the lover-like expression of her husband's eyes, as they often followed
her, she had her reward. She was not deceived by the semi-torpid
condition of the household, and knew well what would be expected in a
Fourth-of-July dinner. Nor was she disappointed. The tinkle of the bell
at two o'clock awakened unusual animation, and then she had her triumph.
Leonard beamed upon a hind-quarter of lamb roasted to the nicest turn of
brownness. A great dish of Champion-of-England pease, that supreme
product of the kitchen-garden, was one of the time-honored adjuncts,
while new potatoes, the first of which had been dug that day, had half
thrown off their mottled jackets in readiness for the feast. Nature had
been Maggie's handmaid in spreading that table, and art, with its
culinary mysteries and combinations, was conspicuously absent. If Eve had
had a kitchen range and the Garden of Eden to draw upon, Adam could
scarcely have fared better than did the Clifford household that day. The
dishes heaped with strawberries, raspberries, cherries, and white
grape-currants that had been gathered with the dew upon them might well
tempt the most _blase_ resident of a town to man's primal calling.
Before they reached their iced tea, which on this hot day took the place
of coffee, there was a distant peal of thunder.
"I knew it would come," said old Mr. Clifford. "We shall have a cool
night, after all."
"A Fourth rarely passes without showers," Leonard remarked. "That's why I
was so strenuous about getting all our grass and grain that was down
under cover yesterday."
"You are not the only prudent one," Maggie added, complacently. "I've
made my currant jelly, and it jellied beautifully: it always does if I
make it before the Fourth and the showers that come about this time. It's
queer, but a rain on the currants after they are fairly ripe almost
spoils them for jelly."
The anticipations raised by the extreme sultriness were fulfilled at
first only in part. Instead of a heavy shower accompanied by violent
gusts, there was a succession of tropical and vertical down-pourings,
with now and then a sharp flash and a rattling peal, but usually a heavy
monotone of thunder from bolts flying in the distance. One great cloud
did not sweep across the sky like a concentrated charge, leaving all
clear behind it, as is so often the case, but, as if from an immense
reserve, Nature appeared to send out her vapory forces by battalions.
Instead of enjoying the long siesta which she had promised herself, Amy
spent the afternoon in watching the cloud scenery. A few miles southwest
of the house was a prominent highland that happened to be in the direct
line of the successive showers. This formed a sort of gauge of their
advance. A cloud would loom up behind it, darken it, obscure it until it
faded out even as a shadow; then the nearer spurs of the mountains would
be blotted out, and in eight or ten minutes even the barn and the
adjacent groves would be but dim outlines through the myriad rain-drops.
The cloud would soon be well to the eastward, the dim landscape take form
and distinctness, and the distant highland appear again, only to be
obscured in like manner within the next half-hour. It was as if invisible
and Titanic gardeners were stepping across the country with their
watering-pots.
Burt and Webb sat near Amy at the open window, the former chatting
easily, and often gayly. Webb, with his deep-set eyes fixed on the
clouds, was comparatively silent. At last he rose somewhat abruptly, and
was not seen again until evening, when he seemed to be in unusually good
spirits. As the dusk deepened he aided Alf and Johnnie in making the
finest possible display of their fireworks, and for half an hour the
excitement was intense. The family applauded from the piazza. Leonard and
his father, remembering the hay and grain already stored in the barn,
congratulated each other that the recent showers had prevented all danger
from sparks.
After the last rocket had run its brief, fiery course, Alf and Johnnie
were well content to go with Webb, Burt, and Amy to an upper room whose
windows looked out on Newburgh Bay and to the westward. Near and far,
from their own and the opposite side of the river, rockets were flaming
into the sky, and Roman candles sending up their globes of fire. But
Nature was having a celebration of her own, which so far surpassed
anything terrestrial that it soon won their entire attention. A great
black cloud that hung darkly in the west was the background for the
electric pyrotechnics. Against this obscurity the lightning played almost
every freak imaginable. At one moment there would be an immense
illumination, and the opaque cloud would become vivid gold. Again, across
its blackness a dozen fiery rills of light would burn their way in zigzag
channels, and not infrequently a forked bolt would blaze earthward.
Accompanying these vivid and central effects were constant illuminations
of sheet lightning all round the horizon, and the night promised to be a
carnival of thunder-showers throughout the land. The extreme heat
continued, and was rendered far more oppressive by the humidity of the
atmosphere.
The awful grandeur of the cloud scenery at last so oppressed Amy that she
sought relief in Maggie's lighted room. As we have already seen, her
sensitive organization was peculiarly affected by an atmosphere highly
charged with electricity. She was not re-assured, for Leonard inadvertently
remarked that it would take "a rousing old-fashioned storm to cool and
clear the air."
"Why, Amy," exclaimed Maggie, "how pale you are! and your eyes shine as
if some of the lightning had got into them."
"I wish it was morning," said the girl. "Such a sight oppresses me like a
great foreboding of evil;" and, with a restlessness she could not
control, she went down to Mrs. Clifford's room. She found Mr. Clifford
fanning the invalid, who was almost faint from the heat. Amy took his
place, and soon had the pleasure of seeing her charge drop off into quiet
slumber. As Mr. Clifford was very weary also, Amy left them to their
rest, and went to the sitting-room, where Webb was reading. Burt had
fallen asleep on the lounge in the hall. Leonard's prediction promised to
come true. The thunder muttered nearer and nearer, but it was a sullen,
slow, remorseless approach through the absolute silence and darkness
without, and therefore was tenfold more trying to one nervously
apprehensive than a swift, gusty storm would have been in broad day.
Webb looked up and greeted her with a smile. His lamp was shaded, and the
room shadowy, so that he did not note that Amy was troubled and
depressed. "Shall I read to you?" he asked. "I am running over
Hawthorne's 'English Note-Books' again."
"Yes," she said, in a low voice; and she sat down with her back to the
windows, through which shone momentarily the glare of the coming tempest.
He had not read a page before a long, sullen peal rolled across the
entire arc of the sky. "Webb," faltered Amy, and she rose and took an
irresolute step toward him.
His pre-occupation was instantly gone. Never had he heard sweeter music
than that low appeal, to which the deep echoes in the mountains formed a
strange accompaniment. He stepped to her side, took her hand, and found
it cold and trembling. Drawing her within the radiance of the lamp, he
saw how pale she was, and that her eyes were dilated with nervous dread.
"Webb," she began again, "do you--do you think there is danger?"
"No, Amy," he said, gently; "there is no danger for you in God's
universe."
"Oh, that frightful glare!" and she buried her face on his shoulder.
"Webb," she whispered, "won't you stay up till the storm is over? And you
won't think me weak or silly either, will you? Indeed, I can't help it. I
wish I had a little of your courage and strength."
"I like you best as you are," he said; "and all my strength is yours when
you need it. I understand you, Amy, and well know you cannot help this
nervous dread. I saw how these electrical storms affected you last
February, and such experiences are not rare with finely organized
natures. See, I can explain it all with my matter-of-fact philosophy.
But, believe me, there is no danger. Certainly I will stay with you. What
would I not do for you?" he could not help adding.
She looked at him affectionately as she said, with a child's unconscious
frankness: "I don't know why it is, but I always feel safe when with you.
I often used to wish that I had a brother, and imagine what he would be
to me; but I never dreamed that a brother could be so much to me as you
are.--Oh, Webb!" and she almost clung to him, as the heavy thunder pealed
nearer than before.
Involuntarily he encircled her with his arm, and drew her closer to him
in the impulse of protection. She felt his arm tremble, and wholly
misinterpreted the cause. Springing aloof, she clasped her hands, and
looked around almost wildly.
"Oh, Webb," she cried, "there is danger. Even you tremble."
Webb was human, and had nerves also, but all the thunder that ever roared
could not affect them so powerfully as Amy's head bowed upon his
shoulder, and the appealing words of her absolute trust. He mastered
himself instantly, however, for he saw that he must be strong and calm in
order to sustain the trembling girl through one of Nature's most awful
moods. She was equally sensitive to the smiling beauty and the wrath of
the great mother. The latter phase was much the same to her as if a loved
face had suddenly become black with reckless passion. He took both her
hands in a firm grasp, and said: "Amy, I am not afraid, and you must not
be. You can do much toward self-control. Come," he added, in tones almost
authoritative, "sit here by me, and give me your hand. I shall read to
you in a voice as quiet and steady as you ever heard me use."
She obeyed, and he kept his word. His strong, even grasp reassured her in
a way that excited her wonder, and the nervous paroxysm of fear began to
pass away. While she did not comprehend what he read, his tones and
expression had their influence. His voice, however, was soon drowned by
the howling of the tempest as it rushed upon them. He felt her hand
tremble again, and saw her look apprehensively toward the windows.
"Amy," he said, and in smiling confidence he fixed his eyes on hers and
held them.
The crisis of the storm was indeed terrific. The house rocked in the
furious blasts. The uproar without was frightful, suggesting that the
Evil One was in very truth the "prince of the power of the air," and that
he was abroad with all his legions. Amy trembled violently, but Webb's
hand and eyes held hers. "Courage!" he said, cheerily; "the storm is
passing."
A wan, grateful smile glimmered for a moment on her pale face, and then
her expression passed into one of horror. With a cry that was lost in a
deafening crash, she sprang into his arms. Even Webb was almost stunned
and blinded for a moment. Then he heard rapid steps. Burt at last had
been aroused from the slumber of youth, and, fortunately for his peace,
rushed first into his mother's room. Webb thought Amy had fainted, and he
laid her gently on the lounge. "Don't leave me," she gasped, faintly.
"Amy," he said, earnestly, "I assure you that all danger is now over. As
I told you once before, the centre of the storm has passed. You know I
never deceived you."
Maggie and Burt now came running in, and Webb said, "Amy has had a faint
turn. I will get her a glass of water."
This revived her speedily, but the truth of Webb's words proved more
efficacious. The gale was sweeping the storm from the sky. The swish of
the torrents mattered little, for the thunder-peals died away steadily to
the eastward. Amy made a great effort to rally, for she felt ashamed of
her weakness, and feared that the others would not interpret her as
charitably as Webb had done. In a few minutes he smilingly withdrew, and
went out on the rear porch with Leonard, whence they anxiously scanned
the barn and out-buildings. These were evidently safe, wherever the bolt
had fallen, and it must have struck near. In half an hour there was a
line of stars along the western horizon, and soon the repose within the
old house was as deep as that of nature without.
Webb only was sleepless. He sat at his open window, and saw the clouds
roll away. But he felt that a cloud deeper and murkier than any that had
ever blackened the sky hung over his life. He knew too well why his arm
had trembled when for a moment it encircled Amy. The deepest and
strongest impulse of his soul was to protect her, and her instinctive
appeal to him had raised a tempest in his heart as wild as that which had
raged without. He felt that he could not yield her to another, not even
to his brother. Nature itself pointed her to him. It was to him she
turned and clung in her fears. And yet she had not even dreamed of his
untold wealth of love, and probably never would suspect it. He could not
reveal it--indeed, it must be the struggle of his life to hide it--and
she, while loving him as a brother, might easily drift into an engagement
and marriage with Burt. Could he be patient, and wear a smiling mask
through it all? That tropical night and its experiences taught him anew
that he had a human heart, with all its passionate cravings. When he came
down from his long vigil on the following morning his brow was as serene
as the scene without. Amy gave him a grateful and significant smile, and
he smiled back so naturally that observant Burt, who had been a little
uneasy over the events of the previous night, was wholly relieved of
anxiety. They had scarcely seated themselves at the breakfast-table
before Alf came running in, and said that an elm not a hundred yards from
the house had been splintered from the topmost branch to the roots. All
except Mrs. Clifford went out to look at the smitten tree, and they gazed
with awe at the deep furrow plowed in the blackened wood.
"It will live," said Webb, quietly, as he turned away; "it will probably
live out its natural life."
Amy, in her deep sympathy, looked after him curiously. There was
something in his tone and manner which suggested a meaning beyond his
words. Not infrequently he had puzzled her of late, and this added to her
interest in him. She understood Burt thoroughly.
Good old Mr. Clifford saw in the shattered tree only reasons for profound
thankfulness, and words of Christian gratitude rose to his lips.