If Sergeant Cuff had been Solomon in all his glory, and had told me that my young lady had mixed herself up in a mean and guilty plot, I should have had but one answer for Solomon, wise as he was, "You don't know her; and I do." My meditations were interrupted by Samuel.

He brought me a written message from my mistress.
Going into the house to get a light to read it by, Samuel remarked that there seemed a change coming in the weather.

My troubled mind had prevented me from noticing it before.

But, now my attention was roused, I heard the dogs uneasy, and the wind moaning low.

Looking up at the sky, I saw the rack of clouds getting blacker and blacker, and hurrying faster and faster over a watery moon.