The Mill of Silence by Bernard Capes — Read

For ten minutes, during which the city was blind with hail, I could see nothing but a thicket of white strings dense as the threads in a loom; hear nothing but the pounding crash of thunder and fierce hiss and clatter of the driving stones. Then darkness gathered within and without, and down came the storm with an access of fury that seemed verily as if it must flatten out the town like a scattered ants' nest.

So infernal for the moment was the uproar that I hurried to my father's side, fearful that his soul might actually yield itself to the raging tyranny of its surroundings.