But lesser alarms were lost in greater. And when RoBards went to the post office he found there a letter from his farmer: Mr. D. RoBards esqe. Las nite in the big storm here youre chimbley was strok by litening and the seller wall all broke wat shall I do about it or will you get a mason from the sitty with respects as ever youre obed. servt. J. ALBESON P S. Too cows was also strok by litening and a toolup tree. J. A. The letter was itself a lightning stroke in RoBards’ peace. Time and security had almost walled up Jud Lasher’s memory in oblivion. And now he seemed to see the body disclosed by a thunderbolt from heaven splitting apart the stones to show it grinning and malevolent. After the first shock he realized that the body could not have been revealed or Albeson would have mentioned it. This gave him one deep breath of relief. Then fear took the reins and made his heart gallop anew; for how could he expect a mason to repair the walls without tearing deep into the foundation of the chimney? CHAPTER XXVII The mystery and terror of the sky-flung thunder were restored to their old power over RoBards’ soul by the news from Tuliptree Farm. The lightning had suffered a distinct loss of social prestige when Ben Franklin coaxed it out of the clouds with a kite-string and crowded it into a pickle jar. Its immemorial religious standing had been practically destroyed. To complete its humiliation from the estate of divine missile, Professor Morse had recently set it to carrying messages, writing dots and dashes, and racing back and forth along a wire like a retriever. But now again it took the form of God’s great index finger thrust from the heavens to point out the deed too safely buried in the walls of RoBards’ home. He could have wished that Professor Morse’s lightning might have brought him instant news of the actual appearance of the shattered chimney. There was a wire all the way between New York and Philadelphia, but the far-writer had not been extended north as yet. So RoBards must take the train. Fortunately the New York and Harlem Railroad had already reached White Plains, and he had only five miles more to ride on a horse of flesh and blood. His eyes scanned the horizon fiercely, and his heart beat with such a criminal’s anxiety that he would almost have welcomed the exposure of his crime—if crime it were. The first thing that topped his horizon was the great tulip tree overtowering the house. Its lofty plume was untarnished. Some other tree, then, must have been blasted. Next, the roof-line rose to view. It looked strange with the chimney gone. As the road curved in its approach, he saw where the brick were torn away, the clapboards singed with the streaked fire, and the foundation stones ripped open. The farmer met him at the gate with cordial homage and a crude buffoonery more pleasant to his ear than the most elegant epigram, since it proved him still ignorant of what the walls contained.