The children did not know anything about Rowlands and Olivers; but they saw that the lady was very angry--so angry that they took to their heels, scampered away over the downs, and never stopped till they reached home, and had hidden themselves under the bed. They were not followed. Punishment for their act of absconding was deferred till Lady Carse's errand should be finished. When once down among the rocks, Lady Carse was eager to show her dear friends all the secrets of her late hiding. As soon as Macdonald's watchman was convinced by the lady that she was not drowned, and by the minister that he might go home--as soon as he was fairly out of sight, the wonders of the caves were revealed to the pastor and his wife. The party were so interested in the anecdotes belonging to Lady Carse's season of retreat, that they did not observe, sheltered as they were in eastern caves, that a storm was coming up from the west--one of the tempests which frequently rise from that quarter in the winter season, and break over the Western Islands. The children were aware of it before their parents. When they found they were not followed, they soon grew tired of whispering under the bed, and came cautiously forth. It was very dark, strangely dark, till a glare of lightning came, which was worse than the darkness. But the thunder was worse: it growled fearfully, so as to make them hold their breath. The next clap made them cry. After that cry came help. The widow heard the wail from next door, and called to the children from her door; and glad enough were they to take refuge with a grown-up person who smiled and spoke cheerfully, in spite of the thunder. "Are you not afraid of the thunder?" asked Kate, nestling so close to the widow that she was advised to take care lest the sharp bone knitting needles went into her eyes. "But are not you afraid of the thunder?" "Oh, no!" "Why?" "Because I am not afraid of anything." "What, not of anything at all?" "Not of anything at all. And there are many things much more harmful than thunder." "What things?" "The wind is, perhaps, the most terrible of all." "How loud it is now!" said Adam, shivering as the rushing storm drowned his voice. When the gust had passed, the widow said, "It was not the wind that made all that noise, it was a dash of hail. Ah! if I do fear anything, it is large hail; not because it will hurt me, but because it may break my window, and let in the wind to blow out my lamp." "But why do not things hurt you? If the lightning was to kill you--" "That would not hurt me," said the widow, smiling. "I do not call that being hurt, more than dying in any other way that God pleases." "But if it did not kill you quite, but hurt you--hurt you very much indeed--burned you, or made you blind?"