In some parts the grain was beaten down by the rain; in airier situations it lay cut but unsaved, and scattered over the fields, awaiting an occasional glance of feeble sunshine; and in other and richer soils, whole fields, deplorably lodged, were green with the destructive exuberance of a second growth.  The season, though wet, was warm; and it is unnecessary to say that the luxuriance of all weeds and unprofitable production was rank and strong, while an unhealthy fermentation pervaded every thing that was destined for food.  A brooding stillness, too, lay over all nature; cheerfulness had disappeared, even the groves and hedges were silent, for the very birds had ceased to sing, and the earth seemed as if it mourned for the approaching calamity, as well as for that which had been already felt.  The whole country, in fact, was weltering and surging with the wet formed by the incessant overflow of rivers, while the falling cataracts, joined to a low monotonous hiss, or what the Scotch term sugh, poured their faint but dismal murmurs on the gloomy silence which otherwise prevailed around.

Such was the aspect of the evening in question:  but as the men advanced, a new element of desolation soon became visible.  The sun, ere he sank among the dark western clouds, shot out over this dim and miserable prospect a light so angry, yet so ghastly, that it gave to the whole earth a wild, alarming, and spectral hue, like that seen in some feverish dream.  In this appearance there was great terror and sublimity, for as it fell on the black shifting clouds, the effect was made still more awful by the accidental resemblance which they bore to coffins, hearses, and funeral processions, as observed by the prophecy-man, all of which seemed to have been lit up against the deepening shades of evening by some gigantic death-light that superadded its fearful omens to the gloomy scenes on which it fell.

The sun, as he then appeared, might not inaptly be compared to some great prophet, who, clothed with the majesty and terror of I an angry God, was commissioned to launch! his denunciations against the iniquities of nations, and to reveal to them, as they lay under the shadow of his wrath, the terrible calamities with which he was about to visit their transgressions.

The two men now walked on in silence for some time, Donnel Dhu having not deemed it necessary to make any reply to the pious and becoming sentiments uttered by Sullivan.

At length the latter spoke.

“Barrin’ what we all know, Donnel, an’ that’s the saison an’ the sufferin’ that’s in it, is there no news stirrin’ at all?  Is it thrue that ould Dick o’ the Grange is drawin’ near to his last account?”

“Not so bad as that; but he’s still complainin’.  It’s one day up and another day down wid’ him—­an’ of coorse his laise of life can’t be long now.”

“Well, well,” responded Sullivan, “it’s not for us to pass judgment on our fellow-creatures; but by all accounts he’ll have a hard reckonin’.”