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A CHAPTER ON ANNUALS. 



" Still the tempest raged, and the waves roared on. Margaret dressed 

 herself, and carefully covered her infant, whose sweet sleep was unbroken by 

 the fearful tumult. Again she went to the door, and stood, looking into the 

 night, regardless of the wind, which drove a heavy rain against her face. She 

 strained her ears to distinguish some sound, some cry, amid the pauses 

 of the hurricane. As well might she have striven to distinguish the low music 

 of the woodland bird, as the wildest shriek that ever broke from the lips of 

 despair and anguish, in the midst of an uproar of the elements like that 

 through which she had dreamt of hearing it. But those from whom that 

 sound must have come, were far far beyond where her ear could catch their 

 voices. 



" She closed the door, returned into the room, and knelt down again on 

 the floor, burying her face and closing her ears, as if to shut out the noise of 

 the tempest ; while her whole frame shook with the gasping sobs which 

 brought no tears to relieve her : and at every fresh howl of the blast, she 

 shuddered and her limbs shrank closer together. She tried to pray, but the 

 words died upon her lips. She could not speak ; she could not even think ; 

 she only felt as though she were all one nerve one thrilling nerve quivering 

 beneath repeated and torturing pangs. 



" On a sudden the wind sunk, completely sunk. For the space of three 

 minutes there was not a breath heard to blow. Margaret raised her head, 

 and listened. All was still. She was about to spring from the ground, 

 when back back it came again, the hideous burst the roaring bellow of 

 the augmented hurricane, as though it had gained strength and fierceness 

 from its brief repose ! Back it came shaking the very cottage walls, and 

 rattling the door and little window as though it would burst them open, and 

 Margaret flung herself forward again with a wild shriek, and clasped her 

 hands over her ears again, to deaden the sound. 



" Then she started from the ground, as a thought struck her, which seemed 

 to bring some faint gleam of.hope. ' I kenna whan the storm began,' said 

 she to herself. ' He may never hae won farrer nor the houses ayont the 

 craigns yonder ; or they may hae pitten back in time to get ashore there ; 

 and he'll be bidin' the mornin's licht, and the fa' in' o' the wind, or he come 

 back here again. Oh ay, that'll just be it ! Surely surely that'll be it,' 

 she repeated, as if to assure herself of the truth of what she said. She took 

 down the watch from the nail on which it hung, and looked at it by the fire- 

 light. The hand pointed to half-past two. ' Oh ! will it never be day ? 

 will it never be licht again ?' she exclaimed as she replaced it, ' that I may ' 

 win yont the craigs, and see gin he be there/ She went again to the door. 

 All was darkness still, arid wild uproar without. No gleam of light to an- 

 nounce the far distant dawn. A fresh burst of wind drove her back. ' Oh !' 

 she exclaimed, wringing her hands ; ' Oh ! gin he had been advised by me ! 

 But the dochter that left her father's grey hairs to mourn her, deserves na' 

 a better lot. It was e'en owre muckle guidness to gie me a warnin' o' it.' 



The long dark hours of that terrible night dragged on on in all the tor- 

 ments, the unutterable torments of suspense. And if any thing can aggra- 

 vate these torments, it is enduring them amid darkness. There is something 

 awfully indefinite at all times in the thick impenetrable gloom of night ; 

 but when that gloom is armed with terrors, and big with dangers, to which 

 the very impossibility of ascertaining their extent adds tenfold in the imagi- 

 nation, then it is that we truly feel the full amount of its awfulness. At last 

 a faint dim glimmer of grey light began to break over the tumbling waves. 

 Again Margaret was at her cottage-door. It was barely light enough to show 

 her how mountainous were the billows that dashed and raved upon the 

 shore, how thick and heavy were the clouds that darkened the sky. The 

 wind howled with unabated fury, and the rain drove against her by fits. 

 She could just discern, by the faint day-break, the white foam that marked 

 the top of the waves, which were now ebbing from the bay ; while a thick 

 rib of sand and sea- weed upon the grass not far from the door, marked how 



