nland stood grey
topless ruins set in nettles and rank grass-blades. Richard mechanically
sat down on the crumbling flints to rest, and listened to the panting of
the dog. Sprinkled at his feet were emerald lights: hundreds of
glow-worms studded the dark dry ground.

He sat and eyed them, thinking not at all. His energies were expended in
action. He sat as a part of the ruins, and the moon turned his shadow
Westward from the South. Overhead, as she declined, long ripples of
silver cloud were imperceptibly stealing toward her. They were the van of
a tempest. He did not observe them or the leaves beginning to chatter.
When he again pursued his course with his face to the Rhine, a huge
mountain appeared to rise sheer over him, and he had it in his mind to
scale it. He got no nearer to the base of it for all his vigorous
outstepping. The ground began to dip; he lost sight of the sky. Then
heavy, thunder-drops streak his cheek, the leaves were singing, the earth
breathed, it was black before him, and behind. All at once the thunder
spoke. The mountain he had marked was bursting over him.

Up startled the whole forest in violet fire. He saw the country at the
foot of the hills to the bounding Rhine gleam, quiver, extinguished. Then
there were pauses; and the lightning seemed as the eye of heaven, and the
thunder as the tongue of heaven, each alternately addressing him; filling
him with awful rapture. Alone there--sole human creature among the
grandeurs and mysteries of storm--he felt the representative of his kind,
and his spirit rose, and marched, and exulted, let it be glory, let it be
ruin! Lower down the lightened abysses of air rolled the wrathful crash;
then white thrusts of light were darted from the sky, and great curving
ferns, seen steadfast in pallor a second, were supernaturally agitated,
and vanished. Then a shrill song roused in the leaves and the herbage.
Prolonged and louder it sounded, as deeper and heavier the deluge
pressed. A mighty force of water satisfied the desire of the earth. Even
in this, drenched as he was by the first outpouring, Richard had a savage
pleasure. Keeping in motion, he was scarcely conscious of the wet, and
the grateful breath of the weeds was refreshing. Suddenly he stopped
short, lifting a curious nostril. He fancied he smelt meadow-sweet. He
had never seen the flower in Rhineland--never thought of it; and it would
hardly be met with in a forest. He was sure he smelt it fresh in dew