"Only to see that you were here, Albert; God bless you," was her soft reply.
She closed the door, and my contrition was at an end; the yearnings of returning affection were given to the winds, and locking my door with an angry violence, which I intended should say, "I will not again suffer such intrusion," I extinguished my candle in a rage, and plunged into my bed, but not to rest. To sleep was not so easy; the storm increased every moment, and though I had never been wanting in the animal boldness called courage, I had a chill at heart that night as if the phials of Almighty wrath were pouring out upon a guilty world, and the judgment of God preparing punishment for the wicked.
In spite of all the sophistry with which my tongue had become familiar, conscience was not silenced, but forced the reluctant confession, that my associates and I were mischievously engaged in aiding a rebellion which would probably terminate in much bloodshed and misery, while true patriotism was the last motive that influenced our conduct. The fact was, that like all agitators we were impelled by motives as various as the several characters on which they operated, and were kept together by an imaginary bond to which, for the convenience of compact, we gave a name very foreign from our real purposes, and in reality little connected with the welfare of our country. I knew even at the time when I was most closely leagued with the Talbots and Lovetts, that they were both selfish and violent. These young men governed the rest of our confederacy with despotic sway, to which, with all our boasted independence, we implicitly submitted.
Thus are we cajoled in every stage of our existence. Perpetually deceiving ourselves, we applaud or revile not the principle but its application, and the same conduct which is the theme of our reprobation becomes that of our praise and adoption, when happening to chime in with our prejudices or our wishes.
I was in a musing vein, and notwithstanding the riot of conflicting elements abroad, I lay pondering mournfully and restlessly, when my cogitations were interrupted by a gun. I started up, and by the time that I groped my way to the lobby, I found the whole family assembled. My mother stood in a listening attitude, holding a little lamp, which she always kept burning at night, in her hand, and ere we had time to interchange a sentence, the sound of a second shot put an end to all uncertainty, and the only point left to conjecture was the cause of this firing. Some thought that we were going to be invaded by a rebel party, while others feared that a ship had foundered in the bay.
As the latter belief preponderated, it was suggested that we should instantly sally forth to the cliffs, and try whether it might not be possible to render assistance to the sufferers. Here was a crisis which broke through the reserve which had become habitual amongst us, by one of those forcible appeals to humanity that bear down whatever is not in unison with their own prompt and virtuous impulse. All memory of bitterness was now suspended in the common interest excited by the occasion.
Reader, have you ever known the unaccountable perverseness of a stubborn soul, in the pride of unsubdued passion, resolved to be miserable rather than abate a high spirit, though you longed, with gasping impatience, for any event which, without your own intervention, might place you once more at ease with those whom you had offended? If you have, my sensations at this moment will not seem strange to you. I had not expressed any sorrow for the past, nor lowered my dignity by any promise of amendment for the future; yet here I was on a sudden, running to and fro, and talking familiarly with father, mother, brothers, and sisters, as if harmony had never been disturbed. Those, on the other hand, who have never experienced the perversion of mind of which I am giving a history, will find it difficult to comprehend how this hour of dismay and anxiety should have been the happiest which I had known for a long time, resembling what a man feels on the removal of a burthen which had pressed with intolerable weight on every muscle of his frame.
An old Scotchman, who had grown grey in our service, was one of the first who appeared in the group, and lighting a candle, which he put into the great stable-lanthorn, he called Harold, Charles, and me, to accompany him. Away we flew, and many minutes did not elapse before we reached the steepest part of the headland which overhung our bay.
What a scene presented itself! The rain had ceased, but it blew a perfect hurricane; the scud drove furiously across the sky, while now and then the broken beams of an angry moon darted on the ocean a wild and scattered light from under dense masses of the blackest clouds, which sped athwart the heavens as if bent on some message of destruction; the waves rolled mountains high, and dashed with wild impetuosity upon the rocks, roaring in thunder as they approached the shore. Gun after gun was fired, but at such a distance that we despaired of being useful. We knew not how or whither to direct our efforts, but stood close together, trying to resist the force of the tempest, and endeavouring to catch any sound that might guide us to the scene of distress, when the shriek of a female voice, borne distinctly upon the blast, afforded dreadful assurance of shipwreck near at hand. The cries were repeated with increased agony, and were louder or fainter as the wind rose or fell.