A human face that
held between its teeth a brazen rod. So hereafter, in the
mysterious future should be held, etc., etc.
But if the knocker had a fierce human aspect in the glare of day,
you should have seen it at night, when it peered out of the
gathering shadows and suggested an ambushed figure; when the light
of the street lamps fell upon it, and wrought a play of sinister
expression in its hard outlines; when it seemed to wink meaningly
at a shrouded figure who, as the night fell darkly, crept up the
steps and passed into the mysterious house; when the swinging door
disclosed a black passage into which the figure seemed to lose
itself and become a part of the mysterious gloom; when the night
grew boisterous and the fierce wind made furious charges at the
knocker, as if to wrench it off and carry it away in triumph. Such
a night as this.
It was a wild and pitiless wind. A wind that had commenced life as
a gentle country zephyr, but wandering through manufacturing towns
had become demoralized, and reaching the city had plunged into
extravagant dissipation and wild excesses. A roistering wind that
indulged in Bacchanalian shouts on the street corners, that knocked
off the hats from the heads of helpless passengers, and then
fulfilled its duties by speeding away, like all young prodigals,--
to sea.
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