Looking down into the valley I saw men running for shelter, hastily pulling their coats over their shoulders as they ran. In a field on the far side of the valley they were carting Wheat, and I saw two men quickly unhitch the cart horses, and lead them away to some place hidden from me by trees.
The village was buried in orchards, and lay along the bank of a quickly running river that caught a glint of the weird light here and there between the trees like a path of shining silver. A squat church tower stuck up among the red roofs.
For a moment the scene shone in the fierce light, then the low growling thunder broke into a tremendous crash, and the light was gone in an instant. Then the rain blotted out everything.
The hiss of the rain on the dry heather thatch over my head was good enough company, and it was added to, soon, by the entrance of seven swallows that flew into my shelter and sat twittering on a beam just inside the opening. Then came an inky darkness, broken violently by a blare of lightning as if some hand had rent the dark curtain across in a rage. A great torn jagged edge of blue-white light streamed across the valley, showing everything in wet, glistening detail.
Only that morning I had been reading by the wayside an account of a storm in the Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini. It came very pat for the day. It was at the time when Cellini rode from Paris carrying two precious vases on a mule of burden, lent him to go as far as Lyons, by the Bishop of Pavia. When they were a day’s journey from Lyons, it being almost ten o’clock at night, such a terrific storm burst upon them that Cellini thought it was the day of judgment. The hailstones were the size of Lemons; and the event caused him to sing psalms and wrap his clothes about his head. All the trees were broken down, all the cattle deprived of life, and a great many shepherds were killed.
I was still engaged in picturing this when the sky above me grew lighter, the rain fell less heavily, and, in a very short time, all that was left of the storm was a distant sound as of a giant murmuring, a dark blot of rain cloud on the distant hills, and the ceaseless patter of dripping trees. The sun shone out and showed the village and landscape all fresh and shining. Then, as I looked, against the dark bank of distant clouds, a rainbow arched in glorious colours, one step of the arch on the hills tailing into mist, and one in the corn field below. The sight of the rainbow with its wonderful beauty, and its great message of hope thrilled me, as it always does. I do not care what the scientist tells me of its formation: he has not added one atom to my feeling, with all his knowledge. It remains for me the sign of God’s compact with man.
“And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations.
“I set my bow in a cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
“And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud.
“And I will remember my covenant which is between me and you, and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.