Billy obeyed. The room was in darkness again but for the flickering light of the candle which Mrs. Brown placed on the top of a chest of drawers.
"Get back to bed!" she commanded, giving the boy a little shake, then letting him go. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself for shrieking like that just because there's a thunderstorm."
"A thunderstorm!" faltered Billy. "Oh, was it only thunder I heard? I thought—oh, that's lightning!" He crept into bed and lay down.
For a moment the room had been illuminated brilliantly. Now a series of low, crackling reports sounded right overhead.
"What did you think?" asked Mrs. Brown, when her voice could be heard.
"That—that there was an air raid," the little boy admitted.
"The Germans haven't ventured over Devonshire yet," Mrs. Brown remarked, "and maybe they never will. But if they came you'd do no good by shrieking."
"I know," Billy answered. "I couldn't help it, Granny! I couldn't, indeed! Oh!—" as another flash of lightning lit up the room. "Now we shall have thunder again!"
He was right. This time, however, it did not sound directly over the house, but further away. Mrs. Brown sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at him gravely. She had thrown on a grey flannel dressing-gown, which she now proceeded to button up.
"I'll stay with you a little while," she said, her voice sounding kinder; "if I'd known you'd have been so scared I'd have come to you before. But I thought perhaps you'd sleep on like your grandfather. He's such a heavy sleeper nothing disturbs him, yet he always wakes up sharp at six o'clock. It's been a wild night, but the thunder's passing, I think."