"Ernest," said I, "you are not very anxious to oblige
your mother; you sit as if the thunderbolt had struck you."
"It has, indeed, rendered me unfit to be of any service to my good
mother," said he, quietly; and, drawing his right hand from under his
waistcoat, he showed it to me, most frightfully black and burnt.
This dear child, who must have suffered very much, had never uttered a
complaint, for fear of alarming his mother; and even now he made a sign
to me to be silent, lest she should hear, and discover the truth. She
soon, however, fell into a sleep, which enabled me to attend to poor
Ernest, and to question him about the accident. I learned that a long
and pointed steel instrument, which he was examining near the large
window, stooping over it to see it better, had attracted the lightning,
which, falling partly on the hand in which he held it, had caused the
misfortune. There were traces on his arm of the electric fire, and his
hair was burnt on one side. By what miracle the electric fluid had been
diverted, and how we, dwelling in a tree, had been preserved from a
sudden and general conflagration, I knew not. My son assured me he had
seen the fire run along the instrument he held, and from thence fall
perpendicularly to the earth, where it seemed to burst with a second
explosion.
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