CHAPTER XIV.
THE MAJOR'S VISIT TO THE "NAG'S-HEAD." Major Buckley and his wife stood together in the verandah of their cottage, watching the storm.

All the afternoon they had seen it creeping higher and higher, blacker and more threatening up the eastern heavens, until it grew painful to wait any longer for its approach.

But now that it had burst on them, and night had come on dark as pitch, they felt the pleasant change in the atmosphere, and, in spite of the continuous gleam of the lightning, and the eternal roll and crackle of the thunder, they had come out to see the beauty and majesty of the tempest.
They stood with their arms entwined for some time, in silence; but after a crash louder than any of those which had preceded it, Major Buckley said:-- "My dearest Agnes, you are very courageous in a thunderstorm." "Why not, James ?" she said; "you cannot avoid the lightning, and the thunder won't harm you.

Most women fear the sound of the thunder more than anything, but I suspect that Ciudad Rodrigo made more noise than this, husband ?" "It did indeed, my dear.

More noise than I ever heard in any storm yet.
It is coming nearer." "I am afraid it will shake the poor Vicar very much," said Mrs.
Buckley.