It had been a sultry, cloudy day, but the banks of cumulus looked very unsettled, rolling and tossing about for no apparent reason, for the wind was almost nil.
Early in the afternoon we, from our elevated position, could see the storm brewing—gathering and thickening and darkening all over Glasgow, and to both the north and south-west of us, where the sky presented a marvellous sight.
The thunder had been muttering for hours before, but towards four pm the black clouds gathered thick and fast, and trooped speedily along over the Campsie Hills. When right opposite to us, all of a sudden the squall came down. The trees bent before its fury, the caravan rocked wildly, and we had barely time to place a pole under the lee-side before the tempest burst upon us in all its fury.
Everything around us now was all a smother of mist. It reminded me of a white squall in the Indian Ocean. The rain came down in torrents, mingled with hail. It rattled loudly on the roof and hard and harsh against the panes, but not so loud as the pealing thunder.
The lightning was bright, vivid, incessant. The mirrors, the crystal lamps, the coloured glasses seemed to scatter the flashes in all directions; the whole inside of the Wanderer was like a transformation scene at a pantomime.
It was beautiful but dangerous.
I opened the door to look out, and noticed the row of ash-trees near by, sturdy though they were, bending like fishing-rods before the strength of the blast, while the field was covered with twiglets and small branches.
But the squall soon blew over, and the clouds rolled by, the thunder ceased or went growling away beyond the hills, and presently the sun shone out and began to dry the fields.
By the twelfth day of August—sacred to the Scottish sportsman—I had made up my literary leeway and got well to windward of editors and printers. I was once more happy.
That Terrible Twelfth of August.