A perfect evening is often the prelude to a stormy night. It was such an evening in spring again, when the wind-flowers were out, and an old man riding off the moor paused beside Searell's boundary-wall to prophesy a tempest. This was a white old man with queer blue eyes, and he too was a mystic under the spell of solitude; but, unlike Searell, he had his ties, without which no man can be happy. By day he roamed, and at evening, by the fireside, told the children small and great his own weird tales of Dartmoor. There were no restless evenings for him. Searell shook his head almost angrily. He lived upon the face of the moor, wrapped himself in its secrets, yet he could not foretell its weather. The passing cloud had no message, the river with its changing cry told him nothing. He went into the house. "Where is your wife?" he said to Oliver. "Her bain't well, master." The man was nervous, and his eyes were large. "Who is that woman in the kitchen?" "I had to get she up to do the cooking." "You have neglected your work today." "I be cruel sorry, master." "What is the matter with your wife? Yesterday I heard her singing." "Nothing serious, master"; but the man was listening all the time, as if dreading to hear a call, a cry of pain, or the voice of life coming along the moor. The old man was right. So soon as night began, the Dartmoor tempest broke; there was no rain, nor thunder, but a dry and mighty wind which made the rocks shake; and through the storm came a weird light defying the wind to blow it out, that light which does not enter the lowlands, but lives upon mountains; and Searell stood at his high writing desk, and sought out legends of the wind. If there were sounds in the house he could not hear them. Deep in mysticism, he read on of the winged clouds which brought the tempests, and of their symbols, the rock-shattering worm, the stone of wisdom which tears open the secrets of life, the rosy flower which restores the dead, the house-breaking hand of glory; and the eagle symbol of lightning, and the rushing raven returning to Odin. And he read of the voices in the wind, while boulders were grinding along the river-bed; of Hulda in the forest singing for baby-souls; of the Elf maidens alluring youths astray; of Thoth staggering into oblivion with brave men's spirits; of Hermes with his winged talaria, playing the lyre and shutting fast all the myriad eyes of the stars. And something more he read about the storm-wind. It was not always taking away, it was giving; it was a bringer of new life, coming in spring as a young god with golden hair, breaking the spell of winter, bringing a magic pipe to make folk dance. "At one time it lulls into a mystic sleep, at another it restores to new life," said Searell, speaking loudly and strongly, partly to reassure himself, because the tumult was frightening. "What is this wind bringing to me, more of the mystic sleep, or the new life?"