The night was stormy and black as pitch. Sheets of chilling rain sped lashing across the glen, driven by the whirling tempest. The burns in the hills, swollen into torrents, came tumbling down their rocky beds all foam and uproar, diffusing through the air an undertone of continuous thunder, that could be distinctly heard in each recurring interval of the gale. Along the road which traversed the clachan of Glen Effick and then wandered up the glen and across the hills, the elements had free scope to work their evil will, and nothing with life dared venture forth to oppose them. The air was full of hissings and roarings and crackings and rumblings, as trees and roofs swayed and shivered to the blast, and the loosened stones rumbled in the beds of neighbouring torrents. The drowsy lights from the inn door and the post-office disclosed nothing but a sheet of falling rain and an overflowing gutter, and the gleams from the round boles in the cottage shutters were but shining bars across the thick darkness of the night. The two bright lamps of the stage coach from Inverlyon, descending the hill road from the east, glowed like the fierce eyes of some monster of the night, and disclosed something of the scene as they passed along, trees tossing and writhing in the wind, wayside burns broke loose from their bounds and foaming across the road, and for the rest,--slop, slush, and blackness. Within, the tumult out of doors gave edge to the glow and comfort of the snug peat fire on the hearth. The wind, rumbling in the rocking chimney, and occasional raindrops hissing on the embers, seemed but to call forth a ruddier light from that goodly pile of burning peat and peeled coppice oak. True the hearth was but clay, and of clay too was the floor of the apartment, but the flicker and play of the flames hid the one as effectually as the comfortable Brussels carpet concealed the other. The whitewashed cottage walls, as well as some outlying yards of carpet, were covered by bookcases whose tops touched the low ceiling, and big books piled and heaped one on the other as they best might be to save space.