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"There was a hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally preserved Druid I believe him to have been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off"
Aye, and if I remember correctly he offered us two knighthoods for the price of one ;-)

I wonder if this story and Turner's image of the lightning striking the shepherd are connected?
Yup, you could be right.

Ain't Google good?

"His symbol of the destruction of a religious Faith is always storm and the lightning of Heaven. Thus, in his great drawing of Stone-Henge the fall of the Druidical Religion is indicated by the lightning striking one of the stones, while the shepherd flies with his scattered flock; but in the drawing of Salisbury seen from Old Sarum, (lent at present and placed in the Reference Series for comparison,) the storm is only partial, the shepherd stands erect still watching his flock, and the spire of the Christian cathedral rises in full light amid soft rain: while here, above the ruined temples of Pæstum, the fires [Page ci.]R. of heaven blaze like a volcano, the clouds of its anger fly like angels of Ruin, and the skeleton of the shepherd lies in the ground"