Two days after the events of the last chapter, the brigade was making one of the traverses which have already been noticed as of frequent occurrence in the great lakes. The morning was calm and sultry. A deep stillness pervaded Nature, which tended to produce a corresponding quiescence in the mind, and to fill it with those indescribably solemn feelings that frequently arise before a thunderstorm. Dark, lurid clouds hung overhead in gigantic masses, piled above each other like the battlements of a dark fortress, from whose ragged embrasures the artillery of heaven was about to play.
“Shall we get over in time, Louis?” asked Mr. Park, as he turned to the guide, who sat holding the tiller with a firm grasp; while the men, aware of the necessity of reaching shelter ere the storm burst upon them, were bending to the oars with steady and sustained energy.
“Perhaps,” replied Louis, laconically.—“Pull, lads, pull! else you’ll have to sleep in wet skins to-night.”
A low growl of distant thunder followed the guide’s words, and the men pulled with additional energy; while the slow measured hiss of the water, and clank of oars, as they cut swiftly through the lake’s clear surface, alone interrupted the dead silence that ensued.
Charley and his friend conversed in low whispers; for there is a strange power in a thunder-storm, whether raging or about to break, that overawes the heart of man,—as if Nature’s God were nearer then than at other times; as if He—whose voice, indeed, if listened to, speaks even in the slightest evolution of natural phenomena—were about to tread the visible earth with more than usual majesty, in the vivid glare of the lightning flash, and in the awful crash of thunder.
“I don’t know how it is, but I feel more like a coward,” said Charley, “just before a thunderstorm than I think I should do in the arms of a polar bear. Do you feel queer, Harry?”
“A little,” replied Harry, in a low whisper, “and yet I’m not frightened. I can scarcely tell what I feel, but I’m certain it’s not fear.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Charley. “When father’s black bull chased Kate and me in the prairies, and almost overtook us as we ran for the fence of the big field, I felt my heart leap to my mouth, and the blood rush to my cheeks, as I turned about and faced him, while Kate climbed the fence; but after she was over, I felt a wild sort of wickedness in me, as if I should like to tantalise and torment him,—and I felt altogether different from what I feel now while I look up at these black clouds. Isn’t there something quite awful in them, Harry?”
Ere Harry replied, a bright flash of lightning shot athwart the sky, followed by a loud roll of thunder, and in a moment the wind rushed, like a fiend set suddenly free, down upon the boats, tearing up the smooth surface of the water as it flew, and cutting it into gleaming white streaks. Fortunately the storm came down behind the boats, so that, after the first wild burst was over, they hoisted a small portion of their lug sails, and scudded rapidly before it.
There was still a considerable portion of the traverse to cross, and the guide cast an anxious glance over his shoulder occasionally, as the dark waves began to rise, and their crests were cut into white foam by the increasing gale. Thunder roared in continued, successive peals, as if the heavens were breaking up, while rain descended in sheets. For a time the crews continued to ply their oars; but as the wind increased, these were rendered superfluous. They were taken in, therefore, and the men sought partial shelter under the tarpaulin; while Mr. Park and the two boys were covered, excepting their heads, by an oilcloth, which was always kept at hand in rainy weather.