STORM-BOUND. 



35 



families, being driven in by the children, were 

 going to roost, and when their cackling died 

 away upon my ear I was again left to the 

 solitude of the old turnpike and to darkness, 

 until the lights of " Har'ford town " shone out 

 before me. 



Fanny and I were detained two whole days 

 in Hartford by a storm of wind and rain. The 

 continued patter on the roof of the stable I 

 doubt not was as pleasing to the mare as the 

 lugubrious prospect from the hotel windows 

 was depressing for me. Still, when I called to 

 mind the graphic description given by Irving 

 of his rainy Sunday at a country inn, a true 

 philosophy led me to make a comparison in 

 my own favor. 



At any rate, I could look out upon a city 

 street instead of a stable yard, and in place of 

 the melancholy cock standing with drooping 

 feathers on the dunghill, there were people to 

 be seen battling the storm, often with reversed 

 umbrellas, and sometimes swept by the furious 

 gusts around the corner and du^mped into the 

 gutters. That, too, was a greater misery than 

 my own, and I confess that the old proverb 

 afforded me no little satisfaction. Besides, 

 within doors I had company. Several drum- 



