The moon was just rising over the trees as they came within sight of the Grange; while in the north-west, Mr Inglis pointed out a heavy bank of clouds which every now and then seemed to quiver with the flashes of sheet lightning that played about it, the evident precursors of a heavy storm. The night was sultry in the extreme, and almost oppressive in its stillness; but the boys could pay but little heed to the appearances of the weather, every thought being taken up with the eels they had captured, and the splash which Bob made when he went into the mill-dam.
The appearances of the coming weather that Mr Inglis had pointed out were, however, not deceitful; for before the boys went to bed that night, the flashes of lightning became more and more vivid; the thunder, from muttering at a distance, began to break, as it were, just over the house; and then down came the rain, almost in a sheet.
“What a pity!” said Harry, all at once, just as they were going up to bed.
“What is a pity?” said Mr Inglis.
“Why,” said Harry, “what a pity all this rain did not come when the fire was burning.”
When the boys reached their bedroom, the storm raged with such violence that sleep was out of the question; so they put the candles in one room, and all three stood at the window to watch the lightning. Every now and then the whole heavens seemed to be lit up with one vast blaze of light, which showed the outlines of all the clouds in the most dazzling manner; then came the deafening peals of thunder, while all around looked of the most intense darkness; and the rain came splashing down, beating against the windows, and rushing off the eaves in streams.
And thus it kept on for about an hour, when the storm seemed to abate, the lightning coming at longer intervals, and the thunder gradually becoming more and more distant, till at last it subsided into a low angry muttering; though the lightning still kept quivering and flashing—making everything in the bedroom appear with the greatest distinctness.
“Well,” said Harry at last, “I’ve had enough storm, and I’m going to bed; so out you go, Mr Fred, into your own room.”
Mr Fred was too tired and sleepy to enter into any fun that night, so he sleepily went into his own place; and before the thunder had ceased muttering in the distance, the boys were all soundly asleep, breathing heavily the soft cool air—rendered so fresh and pure by the late storm, and so plainly perceptible in its difference from the heavy oppressive atmosphere of the early evening.