noon
Although they had not exchanged a dozen words , and might have tarried very well , they seemed to feel , by joint consent , that onward they must go . Louder and louder the deep thunder rolled , as through the myriad halls of some vast temple in the sky ; fiercer and brighter became the lightning , more and more heavily the rain poured down . The horses -LRB- they were travelling now with a single pair -RRB- plunged and started from the rills of quivering fire that seemed to wind along the ground before them ; but there these two men sat , and forward they went as if they were led on by an invisible attraction . The eye , partaking of the quickness of the flashing light , saw in its every gleam a multitude of objects which it could not see at steady noon in fifty times that period . Bells in steeples , with the rope and wheel that moved them ; ragged nests of birds in cornices and nooks ; faces full of consternation in the tilted waggons that came tearing past ; their frightened teams ringing out a warning which the thunder drowned ; harrows and ploughs left out in fields ; miles upon miles of hedge-divided country , with the distant fringe of trees as obvious as the scarecrow in the bean-field close at hand ; in a trembling , vivid , flickering instant , everything was clear and plain ; then came a flush of red into the yellow light ; a change to blue ; a brightness so intense that there was nothing else but light ; and then the deepest and profoundest darkness . The lightning being very crooked and very dazzling may have presented or assisted a curious optical illusion , which suddenly rose before the startled eyes of Montague in the carriage , and as rapidly disappeared . He thought he saw Jonas with his hand lifted , and the bottle clenched in it like a hammer , making as if he would aim a blow at his head .