CHAPTER LVII.
Before the period of Kate's visit arrived, a letter from Professor
Fraser, to the purport that if Mrs Forbes did not mind keeping Kate a
little longer he would be greatly indebted to her, came to Alec like a
reprieve from execution. And the _little longer_ lengthened into the
late harvest of that country.
The summer shone on, and the corn grew, green and bonnie. And Alec's
love grew with the corn; and Kate liked him better and better, but was
not a whit more inclined to fall in love with him.
One night, after the house was quiet, Alec, finding he could not sleep,
rose and went out to play the ghost a while. It was a sultry night.
Great piles of cloud were heaped up in the heavens. The moon gleamed
and vanished by fits, looking old and troubled when she sighed herself
out of a cloud.
"There's a storm coming," said Alec to himself; and watched and waited.
There was no wind below. The leaves of the black poplar, so ready to
tremble, hung motionless; and not a bat came startling on its unheard
skinny wing. But ere long a writhing began in the clouds overhead, and
they were twisted and torn about the moon. Then came a blinding flash,
and a roar of thunder, followed by a bellowing, as if the air were a
great dram, on which Titanic hands were beating and rolling.
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