Once while walking in winter I was overtaken by a storm of rain, and took shelter behind a tree, which for some time kept me perfectly dry. But suddenly there came an increase of darkness, and, glancing round, I saw a black cloud advancing in the teeth of the wind, and close to the earth. The trees it passed were instantly blotted out, and as it approached I could see that in the centre it bulged and hung down--or rather slightly slanting forward--in the shape of an inverted cone with the apex cut off. This bulging part was of a slaty black, and the end travelled over the earth not higher than half the elevation of an ordinary elm. It came up with great speed, and in a moment I was completely drenched, and the field was flooded. It did not seem so much to rain as to descend in a solid sheet of water; this lasted a very short time, and immediately afterwards the storm began to clear. Though not a perfect waterspout, it was something very near it. The tree behind which I had taken shelter stood near a large pond, or mere; and I thought at the time that that might have attracted the cloud. The field quite ran with water, as if suddenly irrigated, but the space thus flooded was of small area--about an acre. The haymakers sometimes talk of mysterious noises heard in the very finest weather, when it is still and calm, resembling extremely distant thunder. They were convinced it was something `in the air;' but I feel certain it was the guns of the fleet exercising at sea. In that case the sound of the explosion must have travelled over fifty miles in a direct line--supposing it to come from the neighbourhood of the nearest naval station. I have found by observation that thunder cannot be heard nearly so far as the sound of cannon. I doubt whether it is often heard more than ten miles. Some of the old cottage folk are still positive that it is not the lightning but the thunder that splits the trees; they ask if a great noise does not make the windows rattle, and want to know whether a still greater one may not rive an oak. They allow, however, that the mischief is sometimes done by a thunder-bolt.