The gusts came faster and faster, and grew into blasts which settled into a steady gale. The pendulum went on swinging to and fro, and the gale went on increasing in violence. I sat half in terror, half in delight, at the awful success of my experiment. I would have opened the window to let in the coveted air, but that was beyond my knowledge and strength. I could make the wind blow, but, like other magicians, I could not share in its benefits. I would go out and meet it on the open plain. I crept down the stair like a thief--not that I feared detention, but that I felt such a sense of the important, even the dread, about myself and my instrument, that I was not in harmony with souls reflecting only the common affairs of life. In a moment I was in the middle of a storm--for storm it very nearly was and soon became. I rushed to and fro in the midst of it, lay down and rolled in it, and laughed and shouted as I looked up to the window where the pendulum was swinging, and thought of the trees at work away in the dark. The wind grew stronger and stronger. What if the pendulum should not stop at all, and the wind went on and on, growing louder and fiercer, till it grew mad and blew away the house? Ah, then, poor grannie would have a chance of being buried at last! Seriously, the affair might grow serious. Such thoughts were passing in my mind, when all at once the wind gave a roar which made me spring to my feet and rush for the house. I must stop the pendulum. There was a strange sound in that blast. The trees themselves had had enough of it, and were protesting against the creature’s tyranny. Their master was working them too hard. I ran up the stair on all fours: it was my way when I was in a hurry. Swinging went the pendulum in the window, and the wind roared in the chimney. I seized hold of the oscillating thing, and stopped it; but to my amaze and consternation, the moment I released it, on it went again. I must sit and hold it. But the voice of my aunt called me from below, and as I dared not explain why I would rather not appear, I was forced to obey. I lingered on the stair, half minded to return. ‘What a rough night it is!’ I heard my aunt say, with rare remark. ‘It gets worse and worse,’ responded my uncle. ‘I hope it won’t disturb grannie; but the wind must roar fearfully in her chimney.’ I stood like a culprit. What if they should find out that I was at the root of the mischief, at the heart of the storm! ‘If I could believe all that I have been reading to-night about the Prince of the Power of the Air, I should not like this storm at all,’ continued my uncle, with a smile. ‘But books are not always to be trusted because they are old,’ he added with another smile. ‘From the glass, I expected rain and not wind.’