The storm beat heavily on them both, and though one from his age, and the other from an education which had been almost effeminate, seemed unlikely to brave a tempest like that without an important motive, it would have been impossible for either of these men to have told what brought them on the heights that boisterous day. The old man had reached the hill first, and stood with his face to the storm, looking out upon the turbulent waste of ocean with an anxious, almost wild gaze, as if he were expecting some object long desired and watched for to rise out of that leaden distance, and reward his steady encounter of the elements. The young man came up the ascent with a quick, struggling step, for the storm was in his face, and he was compelled to fight it inch by inch. He had shaded his eyes from the pelting rain, and cast an earnest gaze into the distance, as if he, too, expected something, when the old man's cloak was seized by the wind, and borne out with a rush and flutter like the wing of a great bird, which made the youth conscious of another presence. He looked around suddenly, and stepped forward, lifting the hat from his head, with grave respect. "Another man here, so far from town, and in all the tempest? I thought that no one but a harum-scarum youngster like myself would venture forth in a storm like this!" "And I," answered the person thus addressed, sweeping back the iron gray locks, that fell wet and scattered over his forehead, with a hand like withered parchment, "I, too, believed that nothing but an old wanderer, impelled by the spirit which he can never resist, would dare the wind on these heights. Look, young man, for the rain blinds me: discern you nothing in the distance yonder?" The young man again sheltered his eyes with one hand, looking earnestly forth towards the ocean. "Nothing," he said at last. "I have searched that pile of clouds before, and find only deeper blackness now." "Searched it before! Did you expect something, then?" questioned the old man, turning a pair of bright, gray eyes upon his companion. "Did you expect something?" As he spoke those eyes grew wild, and the penetrating glance, which he bent upon the youth from under his heavy brows, struck to the young heart, which was open to a new impression every moment. "Nay, I do not know. It can be nothing but that unaccountable restlessness which never leaves me in peace when a storm is howling over the ocean. I could not stay in-doors--indeed, I never can on such days--and, without knowing why, came up here to look this whirlwind in the face, which, in return, is almost lifting me from my feet!" The old man did not heed him, but stooped forward, looking towards the ocean, while the rain beat against his face, dripping down in great drops over his gray eye-brows, and deluging the hand with which he strove to clear the blinding moisture away.