images which present themselves to the imagination in some frightful dream. Nay, the very cattle in the fields could be seen, in those flashing glimpses, huddled up together in some sheltered corner, and cowering with terror at this awful uproar of the elements. It is a very strange, but still a well-known fact, that neither man nor beast wishes to be alone during a thunder-storm. Contiguity to one's fellow creatures seems, by some unaccountable instinct, to lessen the apprehension of danger to one individual when it is likely to be shared by many, a feeling which makes the coward in the field of battle fight as courageously as the man who is naturally brave. The tempest had not yet diminished any of its power; so far from that, it seemed as if a night-battle of artillery was going on, and raging still with more violence in the clouds. Thatch, doors of houses, glass, and almost everything light that the winds could seize upon, were flying in different directions through the air; and as Kennedy now staggered along the main road, he had to pass through a grove of oaks, beeches, and immense ash trees that stretched on each side for a considerable distance. The noises here were new to him, and on that account the more frightful. The groanings of the huge trees, and the shrieking of their huge branches as they were crushed against each other, sounded in his ears like the supernatural voices of demons, exulting at their participation in the terrors of the storm. His impression now was that some guilty sorcerer had raised the author of evil, and being unable to lay him, the latter was careering in vengeance over the earth until he should be appeased by the life of some devoted victim--for such, when a storm more than usually destructive and powerful arises, is the general superstition of the people--at least it was so among the ignorant in our early youth. In all thunder-storms there appears to be a regular gradation--a beginning, a middle, and an end. They commence first with a noise resembling the crackling of a file of musketry where the fire runs along the line, man after man; then they increase, and go on deepening their terrors until one stunning and tremendous burst takes place, which is the acme of the tempest. After this its power gradually diminishes in the same way as it increased--the peals become less loud and less frequent, the lightning feebler and less brilliant, until at length it seems to take another course, and after a few exhausted volleys it dies away with a hoarse grumble in the distance.