Out on the road the dust came lashing and stinging him like a thousand
nettles; it smothered him, and beat upon him so that he covered his face
with his sleeve and fought into the storm shoulder foremost, dimly glad of
its rage, scarcely conscious of it, keeping westward on his way to
nowhere. West or east, south or north--it was all one to him. The few
heavy drops that fell boiling into the dust ceased to come; the rain
withheld while the wind-kings rode on earth. On he went in spite of them.
On and on, running blindly when he could run at all. At least, the wind-
kings were company. He had been so long alone. He could remember no home
that had ever been his since he was a little child, neither father nor
mother, no one who belonged to him or to whom he belonged, except one
cousin, an old man who was dead. For a day his dreams had found in a
girl's eyes the precious thing that is called home--oh, the wild fancy! He
laughed aloud.
There was a startling answer; a lance of living fire hurled from the sky,
riving the fields before his eyes, while crash on crash of artillery
numbed his ears. With that his common-sense awoke and he looked about him.
He was almost two miles from town; the nearest house was the Briscoes' far
down the road. He knew the rain would come now. There was a big oak near
him at the roadside. He stepped under its sheltering branches and leaned
against the great trunk, wiping the perspiration and dust from his face. A
moment of stunned quiet had succeeded the peal of thunder. It was followed
by several moments of incessant lightning that played along the road and
danced in the fields. From that intolerable brightness he turned his head
and saw, standing against the fence, five feet away, a man, leaning over
the top rail and looking at him.
The same flash staggered brilliantly before Helen's eyes as she crouched
against the back steps of the brick house. It scarred a picture like a
marine of big waves: the tossing tops of the orchard trees; for in the
same second the full fury of the storm was loosed, wind and rain and hail.
It drove her against the kitchen door with cruel force; the latch lifted,
the door blew open violently, and she struggled to close it in vain. The
house seemed to rock. A lamp flickered toward her from the inner doorway
and was blown out.
"Helen! Helen!" came Minnie's voice, anxiously. "Is that you? We were
coming to look for you. Did you get wet?"
Mr. Willetts threw his weight against the door and managed to close it.
Then Minnie found her friend's hand and led her through the dark hall to
the parlor where the judge sat, placidly reading by a student-lamp.