“Free?” Will queried.
“Not responsible like.” He was somewhat embarrassed. “Faith-healin’ ain’t the main thing,” he expounded anxiously, “it’s faith-gittin’; it’s lovin’ God and seekin’ His grace, just as you’re doin’ to-day.”
Will was silent.
“Bless me!” cried Caleb suddenly. “Ef that don’t look tempesty!”
Will’s eyes went skywards and found indeed a livid patch of gloom, like a ghastly sag of sky, suddenly splotched in the warm blue. And as he looked, a zigzag flash stabbed through it.
“Quick,” cried Caleb, indicating a fairly leafy oak, “git under that tree!”
“No, no,” said Will, “it’s dangerous.” And a terrible peal of thunder accentuated his words.
“Oi’ll hazard it,” said Caleb, hastening towards the shelter. “The Lord is marciful—He can kill us when He pleases. He ain’t got no need o’ lightnin’. But that’s gooin’ to pour like billyho—and the rine falls alike on the just and the unjust—unless the roighteous man’s got an umberrella.”
Will smiled, though humour was as far as ever from Caleb’s intentions. Unwilling to desert the old man, and perhaps weighing the improbability of an electric stroke against the certainty of spoiling his jacket, and the last surviving sheen of his boots, Will stood pluckily beside his parent, while, after another celestial salvo, great drops began to patter on the leaves and even to drip through them. “Lucky that thunder dedn’t come in the middle o’ last night,” mused the old man gratefully as it roared on. “It’s sech a bother dressin’ yourself agen to set up till it stops. Hark at they Tommy Devils squealin’,” he cried, indicating the startled swifts. But after a few minutes Caleb’s patience gave out: the distant chiming of Chipstone Church bells, with which the way had been piously enlivened, was now chillingly inaudible; the thought that they would be late for chapel gnawed at his heart; and dryness seemed a poor equivalent for those missed moments of spiritual ecstasy. He was about to dash through the storm, when the rain ceased as suddenly as it came, the blackbirds began to whistle and forage merrily, and the sun, bursting out more brilliantly than ever, soon licked up the modicum of moisture that had percolated to their Sunday exterior. But Caleb’s apprehensions were justified. He had overrated the pace of his aged legs, and despite the gain through Plashy Walk, he got no compensation for the missed Half-Way Service, for when they arrived at the little meeting-house, the Morning Service proper had begun.