Then the children all came round Effie, and she told their fortunes, something good for each of them, and sent them all to bed happy.
The wanderers slept as before, but the good-wife of the cottage was up before them, and had boiled fresh eggs for their breakfast, and made them coffee. And so good was she, that she even packed a little hamper and put it in their caravan, and blessed them and wished them God-speed. And the children gathered round the door, and all of them cheered with might and main as the caravan rolled away from the door.
A Dismal Night.
But though the morning was bright and blue and lovely, clouds banked up over the sky soon after noon, and just as they found themselves once more in a pine forest, where also grew great oaks and elms, behold, big drops of rain began to patter down on the dry road, sending up cloudlets of dust, and before they could draw into the shelter of the trees, the storm was on them with all its force.
It was not a still summer storm, for while the thunder pealed and crashed, and the lightning hissed among the falling rain, the wind blew with terrible force, bending the trees like fishing rods, and strewing the road with broken branches.
Nor did the rain cease when the squall blew over, but continued to pour down.
Night came on this evening a full hour before its time, and still the rain rained on.
The bivouac was once more in a wood, and oh! what a fearful night it was—the thunder deafening, the rain looking like streams of fire in the glare of the lightning. But our tired little wanderers fell soundly to sleep amidst it all, and though some drops came through the canvas, and even fell upon their faces, it did not wake them. Only when the birds had been singing for fully two hours they opened their eyes, and wondered where they were now.
The day was very hot and close, and the sun so bright that the roads, much to Don’s joy, soon dried up.