This novel view of the matter excited many smiles, and was stored away in many heads to be repeated about the Court as evidence of Tom’s originality as well as progress toward mental health.
The elder culprit had ceased from sobbing, and was hanging upon Tom’s words with an excited interest and a growing hope. Tom noticed this, and it strongly inclined his sympathies toward her in her perilous and unfriended situation. Presently he asked—
“How wrought they to bring the storm?”
“By pulling off their stockings, sire.”
This astonished Tom, and also fired his curiosity to fever heat. He said, eagerly—
“It is wonderful! Hath it always this dread effect?”
“Always, my liege—at least if the woman desire it, and utter the needful words, either in her mind or with her tongue.”
Tom turned to the woman, and said with impetuous zeal—
“Exert thy power—I would see a storm!”
There was a sudden paling of cheeks in the superstitious assemblage, and a general, though unexpressed, desire to get out of the place—all of which was lost upon Tom, who was dead to everything but the proposed cataclysm. Seeing a puzzled and astonished look in the woman’s face, he added, excitedly—