After the Storm

No June day ever opened with a fairer promise. Not a single cloud

flecked the sky, and the sun coursed onward through the azure sea

until past meridian, without throwing to the earth a single shadow.

Then, low in the west, appeared something obscure and hazy, blending

the hill-tops with the horizon; an hour later, and three or four

small fleecy islands were seen, clearly outlined in the airy ocean,

and slowly ascending--avant-couriers of a coming storm. Following

these were mountain peaks, snow-capped and craggy, with desolate

valleys between. Then, over all this arctic panorama, fell a sudden

shadow. The white tops of the cloudy hills lost their clear,

gleaming outlines and their slumbrous stillness. The atmosphere was

in motion, and a white scud began to drive across the heavy, dark

masses of clouds that lay far back against the sky in mountain-like

repose.

How grandly now began the onward march of the tempest, which had

already invaded the sun's domain and shrouded his face in the smoke

of approaching battle. Dark and heavy it lay along more than half

the visible horizon, while its crown invaded the zenith.

As yet, all was silence and portentous gloom. Nature seemed to pause

and hold her breath in dread anticipation. Then came a muffled,

jarring sound, as of far distant artillery, which died away into an

oppressive stillness. Suddenly from zenith to horizon the cloud was

cut by a fiery stroke, an instant visible. Following this, a heavy

thunder-peal shook the solid earth, and rattled in booming echoes

along the hillsides and amid the cloudy caverns above.

At last the storm came down on the wind's strong pinions, swooping

fiercely to the earth, like an eagle to its prey. For one wild hour

it raged as if the angel of destruction were abroad.

At the window of a house standing picturesquely among the Hudson

Highlands, and looking down upon the river, stood a maiden and her

lover, gazing upon this wild war among the elements. Fear had

pressed her closely to his side, and he had drawn an arm around her

in assurance of safety.

Suddenly the maiden clasped her hands over her face, cried out and

shuddered. The lightning had shivered a tree upon which her gaze was

fixed, rending it as she could have rent a willow wand.

"God is in the storm," said the lover, bending to her ear. He spoke

reverently and in a voice that had in it no tremor of fear.

The maiden withdrew her hands from before her shut eyes, and looking

up into his face, answered in a voice which she strove to make

steady: "Thank you, Hartley, for the words. Yes, God is present in the

storm, as in the sunshine."