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as well as we could. Picture a blackness, and a fearful calmness ; 
not a leaf or a blade of grass moved, and nature appeared as if at 
a standstill. Then, in a moment, this awful silence was broken ; 
a terrific peal of thunder burst overhead, as if the heavens had 
split and were tumbling down, shaking the ground on which we 
stood ; the lurid lightning blazed forth, and the valley below, farm 
houses and cottages, appeared for an instant in a background of 
fire, and in the next were extinguished in murky gloom. It passed 
on, and returned again with redoubled force ; peal after peal rever- 
berated along the hills, and fiash followed flash with remarkable 
rapidity ; then all again settled into a silence more depressing than 
the first, which was instantly followed by a perfect tornado of 
wind and rain, making the trees groan again, as they bent swaying 
and clashing to and fro in the tempest. We have seen a few 
thunderstorms, and been out in them, but this one exceeded any. 
It reminded us of accounts we have since read of those occurring 
in the tropics. 
Week end after week end, for how many years we would not 
like to say, have we spent in the woods and fields. What rare 
plants, ferns, mosses, fungi, lichens, birds, and insects have come 
under our notice in those happy days, with congenial companions, 
- some of whom are dead, others scattered over the four quarters of 
the globe! We sometimes wonder if their hearts do not warm 
when the inward eye of memory carries them back to the old 
country, and the many enjoyable excursions we had in days gone 
past. We well remember in 1853 or ’54, a number of us set off 
to the High Stand Wood, in the latter part of April. It was a fast 
day, during the Crimean war, and we had holiday from school. 
We wandered through and through that large plantation ; the day 
was exceedingly hot. After chasing insects, climbing trees, &c., 
_ we began to feel very thirsty, and I remember with what gusto we 
drank at a dirty puddle of water we found in the recesses of the 
wood. For, like Comus, we knew 
Each lane, and every alley green, 
Dingle, or bushy dell, of that wild wood, 
And every bosky bourn from side to side, 
