one; his wife, aged forty-nine; and a young
woman, Elizabeth Bingham, about thirty-five
years of age; drove along this road from
Lewes in a one-horse cart. Elizabeth Bingham
was about to be married to Mrs.
Weller's brother, "after," as the local phrase
describes it, "they had walked out together
for ten years," and she was going to Glynde
to make some preparations for her wedding.
As he passed a policeman while leaving Lewes,
Mr. Weller said, "Good night; it is very rough."
At the Southerham tollbar-gate, Mrs. Weller
and Miss Bingham were alarmed, and Mr.
Weller was pacifying them. He was over-confident
in the steadiness of his horse. Mr. Weller
sat on the right driving, his wife sat next him
holding up an umbrella, and the bride on the
left of the seat in the cart. On issuing from
between the dark hedges and reaching the brow,
they must have seen the whole landscape, the
sky, the distant hill-tops, the pastures, the river,
a-blaze with continuous lightning. I read the
story of the catastrophe in the fresh marks
on the spot. The horse, seized with maddening
panic, had suddenly started away from the view
of the lightning, wheeling the cart very sharply
round, and springing up the steep embankment.
The marks of the wheels and hoofs on the
grass of the embankment, show that a terrible
struggle ensued between horse and driver, the
horse wildly plunging anywhere away from the
storm, and the driver pulling the right rein to
bring the horse down into the road. All three
had tried to get down from the cart on the
right side, together. The horse then fell over,
capsizing the cart, and entangling all three
under it. They were killed by the fall, the wheel,
and the kicking horse.

For hours the four victims of this thunder-
storm lay dead or dying during that fearful
night: John Dancer on the beach under Seaford
Cliff, and the Wellers and Elizabeth Bingham
on the road, under Ranscombe Brow. What a
touch of pathos is added to the terror of these
storms, when we remember their wrecked
victims, the hopes they destroyed, and the homes
they desolated! How are we to characterise the
fool-hardiness which neglects all the known
precautions against their dangers?

More than three hours after the catastrophe
at Ranscombe, a Lewes tradesman was driving
home in a four-wheeled chaise. It was the
darkest, coldest, most eerie hour in the morning,
about half-past two o'clock. On the road at
Ranscombe Brow, his horse shied. He applied
the whip gently, but the horse would not
advance. His son jumped down and tried to lead
the horse, and then both father and son tried to
lead the horse; but he would not pass
something on the road. It was very dark. They
could see nothing. At last a flash of lightning
showed a cart turned on the axle, and they
discerned a woman lying close under it. The
woman did not answer when spoken to, and they
discovered she was dead. Another flash of
lightning revealed another woman rather more
under the cart. After procuring a lantern and
assistance, and while drawing the cart away
from the horse, a man was seen under the wheel.
The forepart of the cart was kicked in.

These three victims of this storm were buried
in the churchyard of Glynde on the following
Sunday. A long funeral procession, with about
thirty couples of mourners, followed them from
the village to the churchyard. The coffins,
according to ancient Sussex custom, were carried
on the shoulders of sixteen men, attired in
long white smock-frocks, with black neckties.
One large grave received all three, and they
were laid down in the order in which they
travelled. From a thousand to fifteen hundred
persons were in the churchyard; and a crowded
congregation listened in the church, in tears, to a
discourse reminding us that in the midst of life
we are in death.

This great storm left its mark at other places.
At Maidstone and Herstmonceau, hailstones, or
rather bits of ice, of oblong shape and broad as
pennypieces, fell, breaking skylights. A policeman
on duty at East Peckham was struck by
lightning and seriously injured on the left side.
A retriever dog was killed by his master's side
at Hurstpierpoint. A poplar was shattered
into splinters in the village of Kemsing. At
Cuckfield, the lightning entered a cottage by the
chimney, burned a small hole through the
bedroom floor, passed through the sitting-room
below, and left by the door, which happened to
be open. At sea, four sailors were knocked
down on board the Britannia collier, lying off
Brighton. At Wilmington, the Eagle beer-
house was set on fire and gutted, the inmates
escaping for their lives. At Spring Cottage,
Fount Road, Tunbridge Wells, a man and his
wife were struck in bed, the latter lying for
some time insensible. None of the furniture in
the room in which they were sleeping was
injured, but the stone sink in the kitchen was
shattered to pieces. In Ely Lane, Tunbridge
Wells, the lightning struck a cottage, breaking
pictures, damaging ceiling, and smashing panes
of glass and a chimney mirror, A horse grazing
upon the rocks at Denny Bottom either fell,
being frightened, or was knocked or swept
down from the rocks, and was fatally hurt.
The lightning over the whole range of the
storm scorched flowers, corn, especially oats
and barley, although the damage was not
considerable; and it positively benefited the hop
bines, by debarrassing them of noxious insects.

The fall of hailstones is a notable thing in
thunder-storms. Vapours hot enough to fuse
metals, and vapours frozen into ice, come into
collision, or proximity, in these storms.
Conflicts of temperature must play a part in them.
I have never been lucky enough to hear it,
but some people say they can hear a hissing
sound when lightning and rain are meeting
together in the air. Many beautiful
observations have been made upon the six-sided
crystals of snow, but I am not aware of any
upon the forms and sizes of hailstones. Moisture
cooled on plants, is called dew; run into
drops in the air, rain; frozen, snow; and snow