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But the speed with which he walked, and with which Isabella could hardly keep pace, indicated a feeling that some exertion was necessary to accomplish his consolatory prediction.

They were now near the center of a deep but narrow bay, or recess, formed by two projecting capes of high and inaccessible rock, which shot out into the sea like the horns of a crescent; and neither durst communicate the apprehension which each began to entertain, that, from the unusually rapid advance of the tide, they might be deprived of the power of proceeding by doubling the promontory which lay before them, or of retreating by the road which brought them thither.

As they thus pressed forward, longing doubtless to exchange the easy curving line, which the sinuosities of the bay compelled them to adopt, for a straighter and more expeditious path, though less conformable to the line of beauty, Sir Arthur observed a human figure on the beach advancing to meet them. "Thank God," he exclaimed, "we shall get round Halkethead! that person must have passed it ;" thus giving vent to the feeling of hope, though he had suppressed that of apprehension.

"Thank God indeed!" echoed his daughter, half audibly, half internally, as expressing the gratitude which she strongly felt.

The figure which advanced to meet them made many signs, which the haze of the atmosphere, now disturbed by wind and by a drizzling rain, prevented them from seeing or comprehending distinctly. Some time before they met, Sir Arthur could recognize the old blue-gowned beggar, Edie Ochiltree. It is said that even the brute creation lay aside their animosities and antipathies when pressed by an instant and common danger. The beach under Halket-head, rapidly diminishing in extent by the encroachments of a spring-tide and a north-west wind, was in like manner a neutral field, where even a justice of peace and a strolling mendicant might meet upon terms of mutual forbearance.

"Turn back! turn back!" exclaimed the vagrant; "why did ye not turn when I waved to you?"

"We thought," replied Sir Arthur, in great agitation, "we thought we could get round Halket-head."

"Halket-head! The tide will be running on Halket-head by this time like the Fall of Fyers! it was a' I could do to get round it twenty minutes since-it was coming in three feet a-breast. We will maybe get back by Bally-burgh Ness Point

changing his tone. "It is but the thunder of the fearful storm within. Have you not read of the violent convulsions of the elements which, at intervals, agitate the most sunny climes of the earth, unknown to more temperate latitudes? Even thus it is now with me. My calmness yields to the voice of the hurricane; human nature is too mighty to be bound in the trammels of convention, when the hour of conflict comes.

has come."

And it

"I do pity you," said Catharine, gently; "yet, Cleveland, since a word—a wish-might terminate this conflict, why not speak it ?"

"A word! !--a wish! The struggles of man's passions are not to be so quieted!" said Cleveland, gloomily. "It is my misfortune to be under the dominion of opposing feelings: my judgment, my reason, my honor, all point alike to one path; but memory--the wondrous power of the unforgotten pastagitates me with a thousand hopes, fears, wishes: why, I am 'puling' like a school-boy," suddenly changing his tone for one of self-contempt; "you do not recognize me, Catharine, in this guise."

"Some have died for love, and some gone mad,'" she replied, with womanly scorn.

"I am neither dying, nor maddening," said Cleveland, coldly; "and you may believe my entire sanity, when I tell you that I am persuaded my happiness will be secured by our union, and that I implore you-if indeed you love me, Catharine, -to hasten the bridal, that certainty may bring rest."

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"I have loved you, Cleveland," said Catharine, earnestly, as woman may, in all honor, love. But if, with you, to love be to forget principle, judgment, propriety-the prudence of providing for the happiness of the future, rather than for the gratification of the present-such love I have not. I am still capable of so much consideration for myself as to assure you, that no inducement you could offer-no temptation the whole earth could afford-could humble me into accepting the hand of a man whose heart led him to another. Sir Greville Cleveland, you are free. I will not tell you to be happy. I cannot so soon relinquish my belief in your nobility of soul, as to deem you capable of being speedily reconciled to yourself. Consolation, however, you will quickly find-may its balm be not only healing, but safe!"

"You do not, cannot mean that we should separate!" and his countenance expressed sincere distress. "My happiness

is in your hands, Catharine; my convictions-my heart itself, assure me that it is so. Be the guardian angel of my destiny. If you believe that I am worth salvation, preserve me, Catharine, from the abyss into which, with open eyes, I feel that I shall rush, if you withdraw yourself. With you is my safety; with you are honor, happiness, dignity, all that can render human life worthy of immortal man! Pardon my error-the wandering of a moment's thought. I cannot, must not lose you."

"I dare not intrust my happiness to your, keeping," said Catharine, firmly.

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Do you doubt my honor?" he asked, with the sternness he had occasionally manifested throughout their interview. “I cannot bear such a doubt from you. If you could conceive the extent of the sacrifice I am ready to make—"

"I require none, I will accept none," interrupted Catharine, resolute to terminate a conversation which must evidently be their last, without any display of that anguish, which even now was hardly to be restrained. "We have not hitherto understood each other. You have estimated me more humbly than I have estimated myself; and in a point where a woman, true to herself, deems it least pardonable. Here we part, and both free. I have a right to request that you will not pain me by remaining at Darley, and that you will believe our separation final."

"You shall be obeyed to the letter," said Cleveland, bowing with haughty composure, and turning away.

THE ESCAPE.-SCOTT.

The sun was now resting his huge disk upon the edge of the level ocean, and gilded the accumulation of towering clouds through which he had traveled the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, like misfortunes and disasters around a sinking empire and falling monarch. Still, however, his dying splendor gave a sombre magnificence to the massive congregation of vapors, forming out of their unsubstantial gloom the show of pyramids and towers, some touched with gold, some with purple, some with a hue of deep and dark red. The distant sea, stretched beneath this varied and gorgeous canopy, lay almost portentously still, reflecting back the daz

yet. The Lord help us, it's our only chance. We can but try."

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My God, my child !"-" My father, my dear father!" exclaimed the parent and daughter, as, fear lending them strength and speed, they turned to retrace their steps, and endeavor to double the point, the projection of which formed the southern extremity of the bay.

"I heard ye were here, frae the bit callant ye sent to meet your carriage," said the beggar, as he trudged stoutly on a step or two behind Miss Wardour, "and I couldna bide to think o' the dainty young leddy's peril, that has aye been kind to ilka forlorn heart that cam near her. Sae I lookit at the lift and the rin o' the tide, till I settled it that if I could get down time enough to gie you warning, we wad do weel yet. But I doubt, I doubt, I have been beguiled! for what mortal ee ever saw sic a race as the tide is rinning e'en now? See, yonder's the Ratton's Skerry-he aye held his neb abune the water in my day-but he's aneath it now."

Sir Arthur cast a look in the direction in which the old man pointed. A huge rock, which in general, even in spring-tides, displayed a hulk like the keel of a large vessel, was now quite under water, and its place only indicated by the boiling and breaking of the eddying waves which encountered its submarine resistance.

"Mak haste, mak haste, my bonny lêddy," continued the old man, "mak haste, and we may do yet! Take haud o' my arm-an auld and frail arm it's now, but it's been in as sair stress as this is yet. Take haud o' my arm, my winsome leddy! D'ye see yon wee black speck amang the wallowing waves yonder? This morning it was as high as the mast o' a brig—it's sma' eneugh now-but, while I see as muckle black about it as the crown o' my hat, I winna believe but we'll get round the Bally-burgh Ness for a' that's come and gane yet.”

Isabella, in silence, accepted from the old man the assistance which Sir Arthur was less able to afford her. The waves had now encroached so much upon the beach, that the firm and smooth footing which they had hitherto had on the sand must be exchanged for a rougher path close to the foot of the precipice, and in some places even raised upon its lower ledges. It would have been utterly impossible for Sir Arthur Wardour or his daughter to have found their way along these shelves without the guidance and encouragement of the beggar, who had

been there before in high tides, though never, he acknowledged, "in sae awsome a night as this."

It was indeed a dreadful evening. The howling of the storm mingled with the shrieks of the sea-fowl, and sounded like the dirge of the three devoted beings, who, pent between two of the most magnificent, yet most dreadful objects of nature-a raging tide and an insurmountable precipice-toiled along their painful and dangerous path, often lashed by the spray of some giant billow, which threw itself higher on the beach than those that had preceded it. Each minute did their enemy gain ground perceptibly upon them! Still, however, loth to relinquish the last hopes of life, they bent their eyes on the black rock pointed out by Ochiltree. It was yet distinctly visible among the breakers, and continued to be so, until they came to a turn in their precarious path where an intervening projection of rock hid it from their sight. Deprived of the view of the beacon on which they had relied, they now experienced the double agony of terror and suspense. They struggled forward, however; but, when they arrived at the point from which they ought to have seen the crag, it was no longer-visible.The signal of safety was lost among a thousand white breakers, which, dashing upon the point of the promontory, rose in prodigious sheets of snowy foam as high as the mast of a firstrate man-of-war, against the dark brow of the precipice.

The countenance of the old man fell. Isabella gave a faint shriek, and, "God have mercy upon us!" which her guide solemnly uttered, was piteously echoed by Sir Arthur—“ My child! my child!—to die such a death!"

"My father! my dear father!" his daughter exclaimed, clinging to him," and you too, who have lost your own life in endeavoring to save ours!"

"That's not worth the counting," said the old man. "I hae lived to be weary o' life; and here or yonder-at the back o' a dyke, in a wreath o' snaw, or in the wame o' a wave, what signifies how the auld gaberlunzie dies?"

"Good man," said Sir Arthur, 66 can you think of nothing? -of no help?—I'll make you rich-I'll give you a farm— I'll- 99

"Our riches will be soon equal," said the beggar, looking out upon the strife of the waters-"they are sae already; for I hae nae land, and you would give your fair bounds and barofor a square yard of rock that would be dry for twal hours." While they exchanged these words, they paused upon the

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