Silas Bradford's Boy by Joseph C. Lincoln

Ebenezer was waiting in the lee by the side porch when Banks came rushing from the house a few minutes later. They ran down the path to the gate and along Mill Road. It was a wild, eerie night. The southern and eastern horizons were pitchy black, but overhead the stars were shining like diamond points, and the cold was piercing.

The gale, too, was fiercer than ever. The keen gusts came shrieking in from the sea, over the downs and across the fields, and in the open stretches, where there were no buildings or trees to break their force, the two men were obliged to lower their shoulders and push against them to make headway.