BULLER.
For what?
NORTH.
By permission of the Marquis, to shoot an Eagle. She is said to be again on egg – and to cliff-climbers her eyrie is within rifle-range. But let us forget the Boys – as they have forgot us.
SEWARD.
The Loch is calmer to-day, sir, than we have yet seen it; but the calm is of a different character from yesterday's – that was serene, this is solemn – I had almost said austere. Yesterday there were few clouds; and such was the prevailing power of all those lovely woods on the islands, and along the mainland shores – that the whole reflexion seemed sylvan. When gazing on such a sight, does not our feeling of the unrealities – the shadows – attach to the realities – the substances? So that the living trees – earth-rooted, and growing upwards – become almost as visionary as their inverted semblances in that commingling clime? Or is it that the life of the trees gives life to the images, and imagination believes that the whole, in its beauty, must belong, by the same law, to the same world?
NORTH.
Let us understand, without seeking to destroy, our delusions – for has not this life of ours been wisely called the dream of a shadow!
SEWARD.
To-day there are many clouds, and aloft they are beautiful; nor is the light of the sun not most gracious; but the repose of all that downward world affects me – I know not why – with sadness – it is beginning to look almost gloomy – and I seem to see the hush not of sleep, but of death. There is not the unboundaried expanse of yesterday – the loch looks narrower – and Cruachan closer to us, with all his heights.
BULLER.
I felt a drop of rain on the back of my hand.
SEWARD.
It must have been, then, from your nose. There will be no rain this week. But a breath of air there is somewhere – for the mirror is dimmed, and the vision gone.
NORTH.
The drop was not from his nose, Seward, for here are three – and clear, pure drops too – on my Milton. I should not be at all surprised if we were to have a little rain.
SEWARD.
Odd enough. I cannot conjecture where it comes from. It must be dew.
BULLER.
Who ever heard of dew dropping in large fat globules at meridian on a summer's day? It is getting very close and sultry. The interior must be, as Wordsworth says, "Like a Lion's den." Did you whisper, sir?
NORTH.
No. But something did. Look at the quicksilver, Buller.
BULLER.
Thermometer 85. Barometer I can say nothing about – but that it is very low indeed. A long way below Stormy.
NORTH.
What colour would you call that Glare about the Crown of Cruachan? Yellow?
SEWARD.
You may just as well call it yellow as not. I never saw such a colour before – and don't care though I never see such again – for it is horrid. That is a – Glare.
NORTH.
Cowper says grandly,
"A terrible sagacity informs
The Poet's heart: he looks to distant storms;
He hears the thunder ere the tempest lowers."
He is speaking of tempests in the moral world. You know the passage – it is a fine one – so indeed is the whole Epistle – Table-Talk. I am a bit of a Poet myself in smelling thunder. Early this morning I set it down for mid-day – and it is mid-day now.
BULLER.
Liker Evening.
NORTH.
Dimmish and darkish, certainly – but unlike Evening. I pray you look at the Sun.
BULLER.
What about him?
NORTH.
Though unclouded – he seems shrouded in his own solemn light – expecting thunder.
BULLER.
There is not much motion among the clouds.
NORTH.
Not yet. Merely what in Scotland we call a carry – yet that great central mass is double the size it was ten minutes ago – the City Churches are crowding round the Cathedral – and the whole assemblage lies under the shadow of the Citadel – with battlements and colonnades at once Fort and Temple.
BULLER.
Still some blue sky. Not very much. But some.
NORTH.
Cruachan! you are changing colour.
BULLER.
Grim – very.
NORTH.
The Loch's like ink. I could dip my pen in it.
SEWARD.
We are about to have thunder.
NORTH.
Weather-wise wizard – we are. That mutter was thunder. In five seconds you will hear some more. One – two – three – four – there; that was a growl. I call that good growling – sulky, sullen, savage growling, that makes the heart of Silence quake.
SEWARD.
And mine.
NORTH.
What? Dying away! Some incomprehensible cause is turning the thunderous masses round towards Appin.
SEWARD.
And I wish them a safe journey.
NORTH.
All right. They are coming this way – all at once – the whole Thunderstorm. Flash – roar.
"Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
For ere thou canst report I will be there,
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard."
Who but Willy could have said that?
SEWARD.
Who said what?
NORTH.
How ghastly all the trees!
SEWARD.
I see no trees – nor anything else.
NORTH.
How can you, with that Flying Dutchman over your eyes?
BULLER.
I gave him my handkerchief – for at this moment I know his head is like to rend. I wish I had kept it to myself; but no use – the lightning is seen through lids and hands, and would be through stone walls.
NORTH.
Each flash has, of course, a thunder-clap of its own – if we knew where to look for it; but, to our senses, all connexion between cause and effect is lost – such incessant flashings – and such multitudinous outbreaks – and such a continuous roll of outrageous echoes!
BULLER.
Coruscation – explosion – are but feeble words.
NORTH.
The Cathedral's on Fire.
BULLER.
I don't mind so much those wide flarings among the piled clouds, as these gleams – oh!
NORTH.
Where art thou, Cruachan! Ay – methinks I see thee – methinks I do not – thy Three Peaks may not pierce the masses that now oppress thee – but behind the broken midway clouds, those black purple breadths