From over the western hill came the mumble of distant thunder, a low continued roll like the traffic of heavy-laden vehicles on a paved road. A few large drops fell and spotted the flagstone on which Berthier and Foulon stood. They looked up. The sky was now covered with whirling masses of vapour, some light curl-like twists flew about before the main body of lurid thunder-cloud, which was seamed and hashed with shooting lights. The wind arose and moaned around the church, muttering and hissing in the louvre-boards of the spire; the ash shivered and shook, the willows and poplars in the valley whitened and bent, and the long grass in the cemetery fell and rose in waves; the jackdaws flew screaming around the tower, a martin skimmed the surface of the ground, uttering its piercing cry. Foulon had been scratching his initials listlessly on the flag on which he stood, with the ferule of his walking-stick. Drops like tears falling about it made him say:--‘Come in, Berthier, my boy. The rain is beginning to fall, and you will have your smart coat spotted and spoiled.’ The two men re-entered the church. Vespers had just concluded, and Lindet ascended the pulpit. From where he stood he saw them in the doorway, with the sheet-lightning flashing and fading behind them. At one moment they appeared encircled with flame, at another plunged in darkness. ‘As I came into this church to-day,’ spoke Lindet with distinctness, ‘I heard one say to another: _If the peasants are hungry, let them browse grass. I would make them eat hay; my horses eat it._ As I stand in this pulpit, and the lightning illumines yonder window, I see painted there a lean, famished peasant, trampled under the hoofs of the horse of some noble rider, and the great man has his staff raised to chastise the peasant. Under these circumstances, the poor man lifts his hands to heaven, as his only refuge. That is what you do this day,--you, the down-trodden, scourged, and bruised; you who are bidden browse the grass, because that is the food of brute-beasts. Just Heaven! the importunate widow was heard who cried to the unjust judge to avenge her on her adversary, and shall not God avenge His own elect, though He bear long?’ The rain burst with a roar upon the roof,--a roar so loud and prolonged that the preacher’s voice was silenced. The vergers closed the great doors to prevent the rain from entering, for the wind began now to blow in great gusts. The fountains of heaven seemed to have burst forth, the rain rattled against the west window, loudly as though hail and not rain were poured upon it. Dazzling flashes of lightning kindled up the whole interior with white brilliancy, casting no shadows. The congregation remained silent and awed, the clergy in their tribune opposite the pulpit sat motionless. The candles flickered in the draughts that whistled round the aisles; their flames seemed dull and orange.