A THUNDER STORM. 85 



binger of returning serenity in the elements, its 

 wild notes were welcomed by him with peculiar 

 pleasure. Often it was his fate to pass the night 

 in some wretched hut, so ill constructed as 

 to leave him entirely unprotected against the 

 storm. The wavering sparks of his log fire, ex- 

 tinguished by the dense torrents of rain, which 

 enveloped the whole Heavens and earth in 

 one murky mass, defied his best efforts to re- 

 kindle them ; the sole light that met his eyes, 

 were the red streaks of the thunderbolt, which, 

 scathing in its course the stateliest trees close 

 around him, was followed instantaneously by 

 the crashing, deafening sounds of their destruc- 

 tion, and the rolling echoes of the tumult far and 

 near. On such a night, desolate, indeed, was 

 Audubon's situation ; far from the sweetest 

 shelter of home, and the objects dearest to his 

 heart. Weary, hungry and sad, he had the 

 misery, above all, of anticipating the destruction 

 of those treasured possessions, for which so much 

 was relinquished and endured, as the water, col- 

 lecting into a stream, menaced them by rushing 

 through his camp, forcing its miserable inhabi- 

 tant, shivering as in an ague, to stand erect and 

 wait while, tormented with mosquitoes, with a 

 martyr's patience, the return of day ! How did 

 his memory return to the peaceful, happy days 

 of his early youth, the delights of his home and 

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