It was in vain to pursue his desire, at such a moment; and indeed the attorney's blood tingled with joy at the thought of the flowing bowls, offered in such an oration. "Very well, you old fool," he muttered to himself, "I will drink till your cursed sour old cider trash, that you call Rhine wine, has opened your heart; and then, botheration, I will bubble you out of the best horse in your stable. Well, it is well it's no worse: it _will_ rain, and that cats and dogs." The indications of the weather were not falsified by the event. In less than half an hour after all were safely housed, the heavens were covered with pitchy clouds, from which were discharged dazzling thunderbolts. Then came a terrific blast of wind, rending boughs from the trees, and making the chimneys rock on the housetop; and this again was followed by a furious driving rain, falling in such torrents as promised in a few hours to swell the smallest brooks into impassable rivers. This continued until nightfall, and was then only terminated to be succeeded by deceitful intervals of calm, broken in upon, even when least expected, by violent gusts of wind and rain. It is not our design to pursue the conversation, nor to describe the revels of the six Deutschers and their American companion, under the roof of the Herr Schlachtenschlager. Secure from the tempest, they defied its rage, and made even the roar of the thunder and the plash of the rain contribute to their enjoyment. Armstrong has described, in a few lines that find a responsive chord in every bosom, the luxurious addition to the comfort of a warm bed, produced by the tumult of a midnight tempest: "Oh! when the growling winds contend, and all The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm, To sink in warm repose, and hear the din Howl o'er the steady battlements, delights Beyond the luxury of vulgar sleep." The same cause is said by those who are philosophic in such matters, to add peculiar zest to the hissing of the tea-kettle, and the rattle of the punch-bowl. Perhaps, then, it was the violence of the storm, rather than the excellence of the liquor, which betrayed the worthy Schlachtenschlager and his guests into a degree of conviviality somewhat inconsistent with the melancholy duties they had just rendered to the commonwealth and the dead. But whatever was the cause, it is very certain they forgot the dead and the commonwealth together, and by nightfall were seven of the happiest men in all the rebellious colonies of America. By that time Affidavy was as glorified in his spirit as the rest; and suddenly starting up in the midst of a crashing peal of thunder, he hiccuped, and then roared,