?" sneered the witch-like woman.
"It was monstrous kind of you to leave your poor old mother exposed to
danger, while you run away from it like a coward! A bad excuse, however,
I've heard, is better than none. In your case I think it worse."

"I did not think of that," said Sophy, with unaffected simplicity,
rising to go. "Mother never cares for it, but it makes me tremble from
head to foot, and almost drives me beside myself. I can't tell why, but
it has always been so with me ever since I was a little child."

As she finished speaking, another long protracted peal of thunder rolled
through the heavens and shook the house, and Sophy sank down gasping in
her chair. The handsome young sailor was at her side with a glass of
ale.

"Never mind that cross old woman, my dear, she scolds and rules us all.
Take a sup of this,--it will bring the roses back to your cheeks. Why,
you are as pale as the ghost we were talking of when you came in."

"Oh, I'm such a coward!" sobbed Sophy. "Ah, there it comes again--the
lightning will blind me!"--and she shrieked and threw her apron over
her head, as another terrific peal burst solemnly above them. "I would
rather see twenty ghosts than hear the like of that again. Did not you
feel the earth shake?"

"Now for the rain!" cried the little tailor, as a few heavy drops first
splashed upon the door-sill, then there was the rush and roar of a
hurricane, and the water burst from the skies in torrents, streaming
over the door-sill and beating through the chinks in the ill-glazed
windows.

"Shut the door, man! can't you?" vociferated Tom Weston to the tailor.
"The rain pours in like a flood, and it will give the young lady cold."

"Poor, delicate creature," said Martha; "as if a few drops of rain could
hurt the like o' her!"

As the tailor rose to shut the door, two men bearing a heavy burthen
between them, filled up the before vacant space. All eyes were turned
upon the strangers, as, through the howling wind and rushing rain, they
bore into the room, and placed upon the back floor, a man struggling in
a fit of epilepsy.

"Well, measter, how is it with 'un?" said the foremost, who was a stout
rosy fellow from the labouring class.

No answer was returned to the inquiry made in a kindly tone. The person
thus addressed still continued writhing in convulsions, and perfectly
unconscious of his own identity or of that of any person around him.

"Put a tablespoonful of salt into his mouth