IN QUEST OF RARE SONGSTERS 157 



So much liberty in a public park was very unusual. 

 Now just when I came on the scene at about six o'clock 

 a big cloud ruse up from the south-east and grew and 

 grew until it covered half the entire heavens with its 

 blackness ; and as it spread hij^her and nearer the thunder 

 heard at intervals increased in power and was more 

 frequent, accompanied widi vivid flashes of forked 

 lightning which, one would imagine, would have sent 

 the people in terror to their homes. For a very little 

 more and the storm would be directly over us and the 

 whole crowd deluged with rain. But though it re- 

 mained near us for about an hour and a half, without 

 losing that black, exceedingly threatening aspect, with 

 occasional little tempests of rain, it did not quite reach 

 us, and I then noticed, when strolling about the ground, 

 that there was not the slightest appearance of appre- 

 hension or nervousness in the people. The fun and 

 frolic continued without a break through it all until, 

 at nine o'clock, the people dispersed to their homes. 



Now I can imagine that the people I had been staying 

 with on those cold, harsh moors in Derbyshire would 

 have stared and gasped with astonishment at such a 

 scene, and would perhaps have refused to believe that 

 it was an everyday scene in that place, that this was 

 how the people spent their summer evening after each 

 day's work. I can imagine, too, that some nonagenarian 

 or centenarian, who had from his youth dreamed of a 

 freer, sweeter, more joyous life for the people of his 

 country, on coming down from some such unchan,q;-ed 

 district as the one just mentioned and looking upon the 



