Soon after sunset thick clouds gathered, cutting short the twilight, and candles were brought in. Then my aunt prayed Mistress Goel to sing, and I learned what ineffable delight may be in music, for the singer had the art-concealing art, and sang as the thrushes and nightingales do. The old spinet became another instrument under the touch of her fingers. I sat entranced, listening to song after song, watching the singing with devouring eyes. To my wonder the songs were chiefly English, and some of them the simple ballads dear to peasant-folk. By-and-by Mrs. Graves asked for "that Spanish duetto," which she had heard Sheffield sing with her guest, and he condescended to gratify her. 'Twas a concert of crow and nightingale, but the fellow tugged at his collar, and stuck up his chin, and wriggled about, as if his performance had been the finest in the world. During the last hour the low rumble of distant thunder had been heard, and just as the Spanish song ended, there came a flash of lightning, and a tremendous peal of thunder immediately followed, loud enough to be the crack of doom. My aunt began a great fuss about having no bed to offer me, and the necessity of my going home before the storm grew worse, and I was in a manner forced out of the house. So I made my adieux, promising the doctor some glow-worms in a day or two. As I bade Mistress Goel good night I thought her little hand trembled, and there was a look in the brown eyes which I chose to interpret as concern for my safety. On first setting off, Trueboy was uneasy, the lightning becoming frequent and the thunder almost continuous, but a firm rein and a little soothing brought him to composure. I have never seen lightning more splendid. At every flash a fire seemed to run along the ground before me, and the water on either side glared redly, while quite distant trees showed, or appeared to show, their every leaf. Near Hirst Priory, some cattle and horses, which had leaped the fences in their panic, were scampering to and fro on the causey like mad creatures, running great risk of bogging themselves in the swampy margins of the road. It would have been unneighbourly to pass on and leave Farmer Brewer's bestial to their fate, so I opened the gate of the drift, and then gathered and drove all I could see into their owner's grounds. It was slow and difficult work, the beasts being so wild with fear, and the only light that of the flashes which followed one another for some seconds without intermission, the succeeding darkness bringing me to a stand; but at length it was done. Then I battered and bawled at the door of the hind's cottage. He opened after some minutes, and stood quaking and shaking like a man in an ague-fit. "O Lord! Be it you, Master Frank? I thought it was the devil come to fetch me. The Almighty's terrible angry, for sure."