Safe and sheltered as it was in the little cove, the boat quivered for an instant, like a reed in the blast, before the first furious crash of the storm. Had it burst upon them a few moments sooner they would instantaneously have been swamped. But Carl, bending before the furious gale, drove his stanch little craft ashore in triumph and sprang out, followed by Sibyl.
The rain was falling heavily, and the wind blew so furiously, driving it in her face, that for the first moment she shrank back, and was forced to grasp a projecting rock to prevent herself from being blown backward. The next instant her dauntless spirit returned, and, raising her head, she shook the rain from her dripping locks, and sprang up the rocks with the fearless agility of a young mountain-kid, until she stood at the door of Campbell's Lodge, her ancestral home.
All the front of the house was dark and cheerless, for Aunt Moll never visited the front chambers when the family were absent. Pushing open the hall-door, which was never locked, Sibyl, accustomed to the way from earliest childhood, passed through the hall to the door leading to the kitchen, while the old house shook to its center, and every window rattled in the furious blast of the storm. The very chimneys shook as though they would fall and annihilate them, when Sibyl opened the door, and, wet, dripping like a mermaid rising from the sea-foam, she stood before her two astonished servants.
There was a bright fire roaring cheerily up the wide chimney, for, summer or winter, Aunt Moll insisted on having a fire; and over this, the affrighted old woman crouched, mumbling strange prayers and invocations for mercy, and fairly gray with terror. Lem, little less alarmed, sat in a remote corner, keeping his eyes tightly shut, to exclude the blinding glare of the vivid flashes of lightning.
At the sudden and startling opening of the door, both looked up, and beholding their young mistress, whom they supposed safe at the parsonage, standing before them, her wild, black hair streaming in disorder down her back, Aunt Moll uttered a piercing shriek, and, springing to her feet, rushed over and threw herself into Lem's arms, with the cry:
"Ah, it's a ghos'! it's a ghos'! Oh, Lem, sabe yer poor, ole mudder! It's our young missus' ghos'!"
And, terror-stricken, Aunt Moll clung shrieking to Lem, who stood unable to speak, his teeth chattering with terror.
The scene was so ridiculous—Aunt Moll's terror, and Lem's frightened face and distended eyeballs—that Sibyl, throwing herself into a seat, could scarcely refrain from laughter.
At this, Aunt Moll ceased her shrieks, and looked up, and Lem looked at her in utter bewilderment.
"It's our young Miss Sibyl, herself," ventured Lem, at last.