A SUMMER VOYAGE 21 



The wind still boded rain, and about four o'clock, 

 axinounced by deep-toned thunder and portentous 

 clouds, it began to charge down the mountain-side 

 in front of me. I ran ashore, covered my traps, 

 and took my way up through an orchard to a quaint 

 little farmhouse. But there was not a soul about, 

 outside or in, that I could iind, though the door 

 was unfastened; so I went into an open shed with 

 the hens, and lounged upon some straw, while the 

 unloosed floods came down. It was better than 

 boating or fishing. Indeed, there are few summer 

 pleasures to be placed before that of reclining at 

 ease directly under a sloping roof, after toil or 

 travel in the hot sun, and looking out into the rain- 

 drenched air and fields. It is such a vital yet 

 soothing spectacle. We sympathize with the earth. 

 We know how good a bath is, and the unspeakable 

 deliciousness of water to a parched tongue. The 

 office of the sunshine is slow, subtle, occult, unsus- 

 pected; but when the clouds do their work the 

 benefaction is so palpable and copious, so direct and 

 wholesale, that all creatures take note of it, and for 

 the most part rejoice in it. It is a completion, a 

 consummation, a paying of a debt with a royal hand; 

 the measure is heaped and overflowing. It was the 

 simple vapor of water that the clouds borrowed of 

 the earth; now they pay back more than water: 

 the drops are charged with electricity and with the 

 gases of the air, and have new solvent powers. 

 Then, how the slate is sponged off, and left aU 

 clean and new again ! 



