parents' roof?" A look of eloquent gratitude and a teflder kiss was Amy's reply to these fond assurances. For a few moments this touching intercourse of hearts beguiled them from the intense anxiousness with which they had been listening to every sound from without; but the redoubled violence of the storm fearfully roused them from that momentary abstraction, and they started and looked in each other's faces, and then in mine, as if beseeching comfort, when, alas! I had only sympathy to bestow. The conflict of winds and waves was indeed tremendous, and I felt too forcibly convinced, that if the poor Campbells were indeed exposed to it, in their little fishing boat, nothing short of a miracle could save them from a watery grave. There was a chance, however, that the landing of the contraband goods might have been effected by the crew of the lugger, without help from shore, and, in that case, the prolonged absence of the father and son might arise from their having proceeded with them to some inland place of concealment. The probability of this suggestion was eagerly caught at by the conscious pair, but the ray of hope gleamed with transient brightness. A gust of wind, more awful than any which had preceded it, rushed past with deafening uproar, and as it died away, low sobs, and shrill moaning lamentations, seemed mingled with its deep bass. We were all silent, now straining our sight from the cabin door into the murky gloom without,-now gathering together round the late blazing hearth, where the neglected embers emitted only a fitful

glimmer. The wind rushing through every chink and cranny, waved to and fro the flame of the small candle, declining in its socket, and at last the hour of twelve was struck by the old clock that "ticked behind the door" in

its dark heavy case. At that moment a large venerable looking book, that lay with a few others on a hanging shelf, near the chimney, slipped from the edge on which it rested, and fell with a dull heavy sound at Margaret's feet. It was the bible that had belonged to her husband's mother, and as she stooped to pick it up, and replace it, she perceived that it had fallen open at the leaf, where, twenty-two years back from that very day, the venerable parent had recorded, with pious gratitude, the birth of her son's first-born. Ah, my dear son! my good Maurice!" ejaculated the heart-struck mother; " not used to forget the day God gave thee to me. wert the first to leave me, and now".

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rupted by the low inarticulate murmur of a human voice that sounded near us. We all started, but Amy's ear was familiarized to the tone; it was that of one of her little ones talking and moaning in its sleep. The small chamber where they lay opened from that we were in, and

the

young mother crept softly towards the bed of her sleeping infants. She was still bending over them, when the outer door was suddenly dashed open, and Campbell→ Campbell himself, burst into the cottage. Oh! with what a shriek of ecstacy was he welcomed! With what a rapture of inarticulate words, clinging embraces, and

tearful smiles! But the joy was transient, and succeded by a sudden chill of nameless apprehensions; for, disengaging himself almost roughly from the arms of his wife and daughter, he staggered towards his own old chair, and flinging himself back into it, covered his face with his clasped hands. One only cause for this fearful agitation suggested itself to his trembling wife. 'My son! my son!" she shrieked out, grasping her husband's arms, "what have you done with him? He is dead! he is murdered! Oh! I knew it would come to this." "Peace, woman!" shouted Campbell, in a voice of thunder, uncovering his face as he started up wildly from his chair, with a look of appalling fierceness-"Peace, woman! your son is safe :" then his tone suddenly dropping to a low hoarse murmur, he added, "This is not his blood;" and he flung on the table his broad white belt, on which the tokens of a deadly fray were frightfully apparent. Campbell!" I cried, “unhappy man! what have you done? to what have you brought your wretched family? For their sakes escape, escape for your life, while the darkness favours you." He trembled, and looked irresolute for a moment, but immediately resuming the voice and aspect of desperate sternness, replied, "It is too late ; they are at my heels-they tracked me home ;" and while he yet spoke, the trampling of feet, and the shout of loud voices was heard; the door burst open, and several rough looking men, in the garb of sailors, rushed into the cottage. "Ah! we have you, my man," they vociferated;

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'we have you at last, though the young villain has given us the slip." Villain!" shouted Campbell; "who dares call my son a villain?" But checking himself instantaneously, he added, in a subdued quiet tone, “but I am in your power now, you may do what you will :” and once more he seated himself in sullen submissiveness. The women clung weeping round him, his unhappy wife exclaiming, "Oh! what has he done? If there has been mischief, it is not his fault-he would not hurt a fly. For all his rough way, he is as tender hearted as a child. Richard! Richard! speak to them; tell them it is a mistake." He neither spoke nor moved, nor lifted his eyes from the ground on which they were fixed. mistake at all, mistress," said one of the men, " he has only shot one of our people, that's all, and we must just fit him with a couple of these new bracelets." And so saying, he began fastening a pair of handcuffs round Campbell's wrists. He offered no resistance, and seemed indeed almost unconscious of what was doing, when the eldest of Amy's children, a pretty little girl of four years' old, who, having been awakened by the noise, had crept softly from her bed, and made her way unperceived towards her grandfather, burst into a fit of loud sobbing, and climbing up upon his knees, and clasping her little arms about his neck, and laying her soft cheek to his dark rough one, lisped out, "Send away naughty men, grandad-naughty men frighten Amy."

The springs of sensibility that seemed frozen up

in

Campbell's bosom were touched electrically by the loving tones and caresses of his little darling. He hugged her to his bosom, which began to heave with deep convulsive sobs, and for a moment the tears of the old man and the child mingled in touching silence. As he clasped her thus, the handcuff that was already fastened to his left wrist, pressed painfully on her tender arms, and as she shrunk from it, he seemed first to perceive the ignominious fetter. His brow was wrung with a sudden convulsion, but its distortion was momentary, and turning to his weeping daughter, he said quietly, "Amy, my dear child! take the poor baby; I little thought, dear lamb! she would ever find hurt or harm in her old grandfather's arms." It was a touching scene; even the rough sailors seemed affected by it, and they were more gently executing their task of fitting on the other manacle, when again steps and voices approached; again the door opened, and a second band appeared at it, a group of sailors, likewise, bearing amongst them a ghastly burthen, the lifeless body of the unfortunate young man who had been shot in the execution of his duty, by the rash hand of the wretched culprit before us, whose aim was not the less fatal for having been almost unconsciously taken in the bustle of a general conflict. "We've missed our boat, and we could not let him lie bleeding on the beach," said one of the new comers, in reply to an exclamation of surprise from those who before occupied the cottage. Campbell's agitation was dreadful: he turned, shuddering, from the