She earnestly wished that the dame would soon come back, that she might tell her what had occurred and consult what was best to be done.
Had Nelly known what was passing in the dark mind of Eban Cowan she would indeed have had cause for alarm.
Instead of going homewards he proceeded down towards the mouth of the harbour. On turning the point he scanned the spot where the fishing-vessels lay at anchor, and observed that the “Sea-Gull,” among others, was away.
“She will be back early to-night,” he muttered, “and Michael will pass this way homeward by himself, but his home he shall never reach, if I have my will. I am not going to let him come between me and the girl I have all my life intended to marry; he has no right to her: she is too good for a poor hard-working fisherman like him, and he will make her drudge all the best days of her life. If he were out of the way she would soon come round and look on me as she used to do.”
Much more to the same effect he thought, working himself up to do, without compunction, the fearful act he meditated.
The pathway between the quay at the mouth of the harbour, where the fishing-vessels landed their cargoes, and Michael’s house, at one place between the cliffs and the water, became so narrow that two people could with difficulty pass each other. Close to this spot, however, there existed a hollow in the rock, in which a person standing was completely concealed, especially on a dark night, when it might be passed by without discovering that any one was within.
Eban Cowan stood for some time watching the distant horizon, and as the evening drew on he observed through the gloom two or three fishing-boats running under close-reefed sails for the harbour’s mouth.
“One of those is the ‘Sea-Gull’; I must not be seen in the neighbourhood, or I may be suspected,” he muttered, taking his way towards the lurking-place from which he intended to rush out and commit the crime he meditated.
Satan, ever ready to encourage those who yield to his instigations, persuaded him that he could do the deed without being discovered, and again and again he thought of the happiness he should enjoy with the pretty Nelly as his wife, as if the soul guilty of the blood of a fellow-creature could ever enjoy happiness!
There he stood listening amid the roar of the fast-rising gale for the step of his victim. Suddenly he thought—