"Lord have mercy upon us!" cried Plant, gasping for utterance, and not attempting to raise himself. "It's horrible! dreadful! oh!--oh!" "What has happened?" inquired Peter, approaching the fallen man. "And dost _thou_ need to ask, Peter Bradley? thou, who foretold it all? but I will not say what I think, though my tongue itches to tell thee the truth. Be satisfied, thy wizard's lore has served thee right--he is dead." "Who? Ranulph Rookwood? Has anything befallen him, or the prisoner, Luke Bradley?" asked the sexton, with eagerness. A scream here burst forth from one who was standing behind the group; and, in spite of the efforts of her mother to withhold her, Eleanor Mowbray rushed forward. "Has aught happened to Sir Ranulph?" asked she. "Noa--noa--not to Sir Ranulph--he be with the body." "Heaven be thanked for that!" exclaimed Eleanor. And then, as if ashamed of her own vehemence, and, it might seem, apparent indifference to another's fate, she inquired who was hurt. "It be poor neighbor Toft, that be killed by a thunderbolt, ma'am," replied Plant. Exclamations of horror burst from all around. No one was more surprised at this intelligence than the sexton. Like many other seers, he had not, in all probability, calculated upon the fulfilment of his predictions, and he now stared aghast at the extent of his own foreknowledge. "I tell 'ee what, Master Peter," said Plant, shaking his bullet-head, "it be well for thee thou didn't live in my grandfather's time, or thou'dst ha' been ducked in a blanket; or may be burnt at the stake, like Ridley and Latimer, as we read on--but however that may be, ye shall hear how poor Toft's death came to pass, and nobody can tell 'ee better nor I, seeing I were near to him, poor fellow, at the time. Well, we thought as how the storm were all over--and had all got into order of march, and were just beginning to step up the avenue, the coffin-bearers pushing lustily along, and the torches shining grandly, when poor Simon Toft, who could never travel well in liquor in his life, reeled to one side, and staggering against the first huge lime-tree, sat himself down beneath it--thou knowest the tree I mean." "The tree of fate," returned Peter. "I ought, methinks, to know it." "Well, I were just stepping aside to pick him up, when all at once there comes such a crack of thunder, and, whizzing through the trees, flashed a great globe of red fire, so bright and dazzlin', it nearly blinded me; and when I opened my eyes, winkin' and waterin', I see'd that which blinded me more even than the flash--that which had just afore been poor Simon, but which was now a mass o' black smouldering ashes, clean consumed and destroyed--his clothes rent to a thousand tatters--the earth and stones tossed up, and scattered all about, and a great splinter of the tree lying beside him." "Heaven's will be done!" said the sexton; "this is an awful judgment."