"There ain't never no harm done by getting things ready," returned Keziah, who always liked to make her sentences as strong as possible. "Besides, he is there! I'm just as sure as if I saw him this minute. Come on."
But by this time, succour was approaching Christopher from another quarter. Elsie, who had gone to bed and to sleep early, was wakened by the lightning, which flashed sharply in at her uncurtained window. Elsie was not afraid of lightning. She lay quietly watching the flashes and listening to the rapidly approaching thunder, wondering where Christopher could be, and whether they had found him.
Elsie felt very unhappy both on her own account and her brother's. She was sorry to have Osric disgraced and punished, but she was grieved above all that he had been so wicked. Elsie did not believe Osric's story any more than David did. As she thought the matter over, she remembered that Osric had come, not from the direction of the woods, but exactly the other way, from the village. She did not believe that Christopher would undertake to go home alone through the woods, especially as the old story of the wild cat had been revived and talked over only the day before. As she lay pondering over these matters, she was started by a tremendous flash and roar coming, as it seemed, at the same moment, and then she heard Osric, whose room was next her own, burst into a loud fit of crying. Forgetful of all his unkindness, Elsie jumped out of bed at once and went to her brother, whom she found burying his head under the bedclothes and crying bitterly.
"What's the matter, Ozzy?" said she, sitting down on the bed. "Are you afraid?"
"Yes," sobbed Osric. "The house will be struck; I know it will."
"But, Ozzy, you know that God can take care of us, even if the house is struck. Don't you know the pretty verse we learned last Sunday?—
"'Ye winds of heaven, your force combine;
Without His high behest
Ye cannot in the mountain-pine
Disturb the sparrow's nest!'
"He will take care of us, if we ask him."
"He won't take care of me," sobbed Osric, "I have been so wicked. You don't know how wicked I have been, Elsie. I am sorry I told such a lie about you."
"Never mind me," said Elsie. "I am sorry you told the lie, because that was wicked, but I don't mind about myself. But, Ozzy, if you have not told the truth about Christopher, do tell it now!"