6 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER. 
thunder which is so much more impressive than 
that in level regions. At first heaven was rent 
by the sound; then mountain after mountain 
seemed to fall in noisy ruin, the great ledges 
tumbling in upon each other with deafening 
shocks; then the sound rolled away through the 
sky, striking here and there upon some cloudy 
promontory and giving out a softened boom or 
waning rumble. 
For full twenty minutes the trees writhed in 
the wind, the rain fell, the leaves nodded and 
shivered under the drops, and the rhythmic roar 
of the rain was broken irregularly by the thun¬ 
der. As time passed, the shower slackened, the 
thunder followed the lightning at longer and 
longer intervals, the wind seemed to take deeper 
and less nervous breaths, and I listened to 'dis¬ 
cover what creature of the swamp would first 
raise its voice above the subsiding storm. A 
mosquito hovered before me, dodging the drops 
in its vibratory flight. If it was buzzing I 
could not hear it. Suddenly a single call from 
a blue jay came, in a lull of the wind, from a 
thicket of spruces. “Yoly-’oly,” it said, and 
was silent again. I took a few steps forward, 
and the shrill alarm-note of a chipmunk sounded 
through the gloom. I strolled slowly through 
the drenched and dripping woods fragrant with 
the perfume of moss and mould. It was more 
