88 LETTERS FROM THE BACKWOODS. 



and howled with an ominous sound around the old 

 dwelling in which w^e were seated. I rose and went 

 to the door, and looked out upon the sea. No other 

 building was in sight, and the solitude of the scene 

 was heightened by the murky heavens, the moaning 

 blast, and the deep prophetic voice of the surge as it 

 rolled heavily on the shore. The music of the sea 

 always finds an answ^ering chord in the human heart, 

 especially heard at night when the gathering storm is 

 sounding its trumpet and summoning the reluctant 

 waves to the coming conflict. There is a sullen 

 threatening sound in the roar of the ocean heard at 

 such a time, which fills the heart with gloomy fore- 

 bodings, and brings before the vision the proud barque, 

 reeling to and fro in the tempest, with her masts bent 

 and bowed, and her rent sails streaming to the blast, 

 and the form of the sailor clinging to the parting 

 shrouds, and all the tumult and terror of a shipwreck. 

 As I stood listening to the Atlantic speaking to the 

 shore that hurled back its blow, the flame of a light- 

 house five miles distant, on one of the Fire Islands, 

 suddenly flashed up in the surrounding darkness. 

 Round and round in its circle it slowly swept, now 

 lost in the surrounding gloom, as it looked away from 

 me towards the vexed Atlantic, and now blazing land- 

 ward through the driving rain. That lantern had 

 almost a human look as it slowly revolved on its axis. 

 It seemed keeping watch and ward over sea and land 

 — now casting its flaming eye over the deep to see 

 what vessels were tossing there, and now^ looking 

 down on the bay and land to see how it fared with 



