Hannah, who had recovered her health and usefulness in a miraculous manner, since her master's quarrel with the Captain, at any rate showed an English appetite while discussing the execrable mess. Flora, who was really hungry, and longing for wholesome food, envied her the zest with which she demolished slice after slice, and still kept sending up her plate for more.
That night they were given an awful specimen of a Canadian thunder-storm. The atmosphere was literally a-blaze with the lightning, while heaven's dread artillery burst continuously overhead, the long mountain-chain, on the north side of the river, hurling it back from all its rocky caverns in one deep unbroken round.
It was a night of awful and terrific beauty. Flora had never beheld its parallel in the old country—had never seen such electric flashes of blinding light, nor heard such ear-splitting peals of thunder. For the first time their dangerous freight flashed upon her mind; she remembered the gunpowder, and clung closer to the arm of her husband.
"See how the lightning plays upon the iron rings and bolts which fasten the sails to the mast—what if it should strike the ship, dear John?"
"Don't anticipate evil, Flora. There may be danger, but as we can neither escape from it, nor avert it, if it comes, it is better not to dwell upon it."
"It would be a bad job for us a'," said Mr. Collins. "But if it sud happen, we should be blown to pieces with the ship, an' ken nothing about it. I canna imagine an easier death."
"The very suddenness of it makes it appear to me so dreadful," said Flora. "It is not pleasant to know that you are standing over a volcano, which one spark might ignite, and scatter you in fragments into the air and waters. Are these storms common in Canada?"
"I dinna ken," returned Collins; "this is my first voyage."
"They are of frequent occurrence, Mrs. Lyndsay," said Mr. Wright, who happened to be passing, "and are often accompanied with dreadful hurricanes, that sweep down every thing which obstructs their course. The awful fire at Miramichi, which took place a few years ago, and which burnt up half the forests in the country, was supposed to have been kindled by lightning. I happened to be there at the time; and though staying in a cleared part of the country, with a relation of my wife, the appearance that the fire made was so terrible that it often haunts me in dreams."
The cabin was so close, and the lightning so vivid, that Flora, in spite of the rain, preferred walking the deck until the storm subsided, which it did before day-break, when she retired to bed,