The sudden drying of the well at
such a time was the most alarming sign; for he remembered that the same
thing had been observed just before great mountain-slides. This long
rain, too, was just the kind of cause which was likely to loosen the
strata of rock piled up in the ledges; if the dreaded event should ever
come to pass, it would be at such a time.
He paced his chamber uneasily until long past midnight. If the morning
came without accident, he meant to have a careful examination made of
all the rents and fissures above, of their direction and extent, and
especially whether, in case of a mountain-slide, the huge masses would
be like to reach so far to the east and so low down the declivity as the
mansion.
At two o'clock in the morning he was dozing in his chair. Old Sophy had
lain down on her bed, and was muttering in troubled dreams.
All at once a loud crash seemed to rend the very heavens above them: a
crack as of the thunder that follows close upon the bolt,--a rending and
crushing as of a forest snapped through all its stems, torn, twisted,
splintered, dragged with all its ragged boughs into one chaotic ruin.
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