It was from the East that the storm came, extending crescent-wise its ponderous masses of slate-blue clouds, pregnant with rain—possibly with hail. It whistled in the tree-tops, it tore along the corn, while the birds flew with noisy cries to the shelter of the eaves, and even the dogs sought the cabins. The cattle, too, were coming back from the fields; whirls and pillars of dust were dancing along the roads, and closer and closer still came the sound of the thunder. Presently the sun was submerged in a mass of rusty-hued vapour, through which it shone as through a pane of semi-transparent glass. The thunder growled close to the village, and such gusts came now and then as might have torn the trees up by the roots. The first thunderbolts struck somewhere far away in the woods; the whole sky quickly became of a dark livid tint; the sun vanished. Gusts flew raging by; bolts fell in quick succession; the earth shook with thunder, and the black sky shone brilliantly with flashes whose sudden glint plucked the eyes out. The very dwellings quivered to the sounds, and all creation quailed and shrank with fear. Luckily, however, the storm passed over on one side. The lightning struck somewhere far away, the wind went down, having done no harm, the sky brightened up again, after a plentiful rain had fallen a little before Vespers, bringing with it such a flood of water that all the corn was laid instantly, the mill-stream ran in spate, and every ditch, field-path and furrow was flowing with foaming water. It was only at evening that all was as before, the rain having given over, and the sun shining forth behind the western clouds—a huge bright-red ball. Then did Lipka breathe once more, its inhabitants looked out upon the world again, gratefully inhaling the cool air and the scents of the land after the rain, especially those of the young birches and the mint-plants in the gardens. The pools all along the roads burned in the sunset, the leaves and grasses sparkled, and the frothy waters seemed liquid fire, as they bubbled with joy, streaming down to the mill-pond. A slight breeze rustled the laid corn; a bracing cool now breathed from the woods and fields. The children, shouting merrily, went out to paddle in the brooks and ditches; birds chirruped in the boughs, dogs scampered about; the metallic notes of the priest’s guinea-hens sounded from the hedge: in all the roads and all about the huts there was a din of talk and merry calls. Soon, too, not far from the mill, rose the sounds of the love-ditty: “Long, long waiting, I am drenched with dew: Loved one, loved one, take me in to you!” And from the fields, together with the bellowing of the cattle driven homewards, there floated a song bawled by some herdsman: “Sweetheart, your rye once reaped, you said That me without delay you’d wed: Rye, wheat and oats are reaped; and yet My marriage lines I cannot get! Oy dana, da dana!”