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Indeed, the chill chamber in the rock where he was lying was no fit place even for a well man at that time to dwell in; for the season of rains had come, and all the nights were cold and damp, while through the afternoons and in the night-time, during which portions of the day the rain fell in torrents, the whole mountain was shaken by the tremendous peals of thunder which roared and crashed about its crest.

And what songs they were singing all around him, and what terrible words rang out, only to excite peals of laughter. In the public-houses the workmen's wives, the wives of small tradesmen, decently dressed in black, were drinking their faces to a flaming red, and urging their husbands to drink more.

Not very far from this church-yard was a public-house; and in that public-house a small parlor upstairs, and in that parlor a man, who watched the funeral rites with great interest; but not in a becoming spirit; for his eyes twinkled with the intensest merriment all the time, and at each fresh stage of the mournful business he burst into peals of laughter.

The wind had been high during the night, but a dead calm preceded the rumbling peals which were first heard at a great distance. Soon however we had the cloud near enough in all its glory, with lightning playing above and about us, until the atmosphere seemed one continued blaze of light; the rain also fell heavily for a short time.

The leafy groves on the zephyr-swept hill sides, once sacred to the pleasures of Bourbon tyrants, now ring with peals of noisy laughter, with gallant compliments, and with the harsh shouting of the ciucciari, the leaders of the poor over-driven donkeys.

Then the vegetables are taken from the furrows by the basketful, and poured into brown linen sacks to be carried home on the wheelbarrow. One of these sacks is not yet quite full, and the work has been prolonged after sunset. The field is a long way from the village, but in the still air sounds are carried far across the plain. Suddenly the bell of the village church peals forth.

The thunder-storm had not yet burst; but the clouds were gathering in denser masses, and occasional peals of thunder were already rolling through the sultry air. It was a circumstance, moreover, fraught with double danger, that the tendencies which were apparently most opposite met together at their extremes both as regarded ends and as regarded means.

Gazing up, repeated peals they hear; And, in a heaven serene, refulgent arms appear Reddening the skies, and glittering all around, The tempered metals clash, and yield a silver sound. AEneas understood this marvelous apparition, and he explained it to his astonished companions as a call to him from heaven.

It was in the eleventh century; it was in the middle of the Dark Ages, that the Norman and his followers effected their successful landing and lodgement here; it was in the later years of the fifteenth century, it was when the bell that tolled through Europe for a century and a half the closing hour of the Middle Ages, had already begun its peals, that the Tudor 'came in by battle.

We sailed with a fresh breeze in expectation of gaining the entrance by the approach of night; but we were obliged to anchor in the open sea, amidst the most awful peals of thunder, while the whole heaven displayed nothing but vivid flashes of lightning.