The motion of the bed, which I now believe must have been the
motion of the whole house, still continued; but the grating
noises in the room gradually ceased, from which I inferred that
the furniture had brought up against the front wall of the room.
It now was impossible for me to get up and strike a light,
for to do so with kerosene oil all over the floor and its vapor
diffused through the room would probably result in setting the
house on fire. So I must stay in darkness and wait. I do not
think I was very much frightened--I was so astonished that there
was no room in my mind for fear. In fact, all my mental energies
were occupied in trying to find out what had happened. It
required, however, only a few more minutes of reflection, and a
few more minutes of the grating, bumping, trembling of my house,
to enable me to make up my mind what was happening. My house was
sliding downhill!
The wind must have blown the building from its foundations,
and upon the slippery surface of the hillside, probably lashed
into liquid mud by the pouring rain, it was making its way down
toward the valley! In a flash my mind's eye ran over the whole
surface of the country beneath me as far as I knew it. I was
almost positive that there was no precipice, no terrible chasm
into which my house might fall. There was nothing but sloping
hillside, and beneath that a wide stretch of fields.
Now there was a new and sudden noise of heavy objects falling
upon the roof, and I knew what that meant: my chimney had been
wrenched from its foundations, and the upper part of it had now
toppled over.
Pages:
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253