These clouds were, of course, passing at a very low elevation above the earth: in rainy weather, although but a few hundred feet high, the ridges are frequently obscured with cloud. The old folk in the vale, whose whole lives have been spent watching and waiting on the weather, say that the hills `draw' the thunder--that wherever a storm arises it always `draws' towards them. If it comes from the west it often splits--one storm going along the ridges to the south, and the other passing over detached hills to the northward; so that the basin between is rarely visited by thunder overhead. They have, too, an old superstition--based apparently, on a text of the Bible--that the thunder always rises originally in the north, though it may reach them from a different direction. For it is their belief also that thunder `works round;' so that after a heavy storm, say in the afternoon, when the air has cleared to all appearance, they will tell you that the sunshine and calm are a deception. In a few hours' time, or in the course of the night, the storm will return, having `worked round:' and indeed in that locality this is very often the case. It is to be observed that even a small copse will for a short distance in its rear quite divert the course of a breeze; so that a weathercock placed on the leeside is entirely untrustworthy: if the wind really blows from the south and over the copse, the weathercock will sometimes point in precisely the opposite direction, obeying the `undertow' of the gale, as it were, drawing backwards. In summer especially, I fancy, an effect is sometimes produced by a variation in the electrical condition of comparatively small areas, corresponding perhaps with the difference of soil--one becoming more heated than another. Showers are certainly often of a remarkably local character: a walk of half a mile along a road dark from recent rain will frequently bring you to a place where the dust is white and thick as ever, the line of demarcation sharply marked across the highway. In winter rain takes a wider sweep. From the elevation of the earthwork on the downs--with a view of mile after mile of plain and vale below--it is easy on a showery summer day to observe the narrow limits of the rain. Dusky streamers, like the train of a vast dark robe, slope downwards from the blacker water-carrying cloud above--downwards and backwards, the upper cloud travelling faster than the falling drops. Between the hill and the rain yonder intervenes a broad space of several miles, and beyond it again stretches a clear opening to the horizon. The streamers sweep along a narrow strip of country which is drenched with rain, while on either side the sun is shining.