The next day rose in storms. The sky was covered with clouds, flying
before the wind in infinite volumes of rolling blackness. The sea
raged against the beetling rocks of Lindisfarne, as if it menaced
the existence of the island; and the fishers, who had prepared their
little barks all along the beech, for embarkation at the dawn, were
seen on every side, drawing them ashore, to prevent the mischief which
threatened such small craft, from the beating of the waves.
Some, that had been more adventurous, and set forth during the night,
notwithstanding the warning elements, met the fate their more prudent
comrades averted; and Peter came in, to take away the almost untasted
breakfast, with the melancholy tidings, that the wreck of several
boats had been dashed on shore.
Mr. Athelstone anticipated a sad summons from many a bereft family
in his flock; and his own anxious fears for the yacht that carried
his beloved nephew, unfolding to him what were the apprehensions in
every breast around him, he gently reproved the old man, for bringing
in the reports of the hour, to wound the tender spirits of invalids;
and glancing at Marcella, who had turned her death-like face away, he
piously ejaculated:
"But, the Lord makes darkness his secret place! His pavilion round
about him is dark water, and thick clouds cover him. But at the
brightness of his presence, the clouds shall be removed, and he shall
take them who trust in him, out of many waters!"
Cornelia rose from her seat, and withdrew. And when the encrease of
the storm became too intolerable for Marcella to endure with any
apparent tranquillity, she too, left the Abbot's chair, and putting her
unsteady hand upon the arm of her mother, hardly sustained herself out
of the room.
The sky was red on the horizon, as if dyed in blood, and the lurid
clouds, tumbling over each other, like an upward sea of molten fire,
roared in the blast, amid the thundering of the waves below, which
dashed their boiling surges in mountainous and foaming heaps, against
the stupendous cliffs of the opposite shore.
Mr. Athelstone and Ferdinand were both on different parts of the rock,
each with his telescope in his hand, looking afar for the only object
which now possessed their thought. But a furious tornado of sleet
and rain, accompanied with thunder and lightning, and a darkness at
noon-day, black as midnight, shrouded them at once; and the re-doubling
tempest which burst forth above and beneath, seemed to shake the old
rocks of Lindisfarne to their foundations.
At the fearful concussion, which appeared to the inhabitants of the
Pastorage, like the awful summons on the judgment-day, Marcella threw
herself on the bosom of her mother, and murmured, "Louis!" till her
swooning voice was heard no more.
Cornelia was alone, and fell from her knees, prostrate on the floor.
She was found in that position, and insensible as her friend, when
Alice ran into the room in the agony of her fears; and her screams
brought their terrified mother into the same apartment.
Mr. Athelstone's look-out of utter hopelessness, was succeeded by the
now doubly afflicting duty of visiting and consoling the widows and
the orphans, which the present horrors had rendered dependent on his
spiritual comfort. More than one drowned body was carried before him,
into the sorrowing cottage which had once been its home; and, after he
had soothed the wretched inhabitants with "the hope which is to come;"
he took his way to the Parsonage, to prepare his own family for the
dreadful catastrophe to its happiness, which, he did not doubt that
night, or the next morning, would unfold.
Ferdinand would not relinquish his more cheering expectations, till
despair should appear before him, in the lifeless bodies of his friends.
Noon, and evening, and approaching night, were only marked, to the
lately so happy Pastorage, now the house of mourning, by the fits
of the storm. Marcella lay weeping in her mother's arms, no longer
disguising the condition of her heart. And the Marchioness, in more
audible anguish, wrung her hands over her, frequently exclaiming--
"Oh, most unholy Island! Would to God we had never seen its rocks!
Marcella, my child, my child! Still live for your fond mother."
Cornelia lay buried in the coverlid of her bed, in that terrible
stillness, which alike disdained further concealment of her grief, and
rejected the comfort that could not reach her heart. Mrs. Coningsby
knelt by her bed-side, and Alice, ran weeping from room to room,
offering her insufficient consolations to all.
Mr. Athelstone knew that this terrific hour of suspense, was not the
time to do more than repeat his first injunctions to hope even while
they feared; and to trust in the preserving power, or the support of
Him, who alike commanded the great deep, and the firm land.
None in the island slept that tremendous night; but those whose eyes
the surge had closed, never to wake again till time should be no more.
Mr. Athelstone remained alone in his study, composing himself for the
task he dreaded the morning would call upon him to fulfil; or walking
to and fro, struggling with the human affections in his breast which
unmanned all his resignation, when he pictured the weltering waves
which were then washing the lifeless body of his beloved Louis.
"Oh, my child!" cried he, "was it for this, that all those endowments
were bestowed?--That all these trials have been sustained!"
But he checked the rebellious grief that channelled his venerable
cheeks with tears; and, bowing before Him, whose gracious providence he
preached, he exclaimed,--"Not my will, but thine be done! For I asked
of thee life for him, and honour; but thou hast given him immortality,
and glory, even for ever!"
Whilst he was in the depths of these devotions, the violence of the
storm gradually subsided, and a stillness, horrid to meditation,
succeeded. It was a pause in nature, that seemed to declare the work
of destruction was accomplished, and the destroying agents might repose.
The dawn slowly broke, and found the pious man with his Bible before
him. A suppressed bustle, sounded from the hall. He started from his
seat, and entering the intervening room, met Ferdinand with his cloaths
and hair dripping, having neither hat nor cloak; but joy was in his
countenance, and seizing Mr. Athelstone's hand,
"They are safe!" cried he, "My father, and Sir Anthony, bring the good
tidings! The yatch is safe!"
The Pastor bent his silvered head for a moment on the shoulder of
Ferdinand, and the holy man's sacred response ascended to heaven. When
he looked up, the Marquis Santa Cruz, and Sir Anthony were in the room;
and they replied to his grateful questions, by informing him in detail,
of what the following is a brief account.
The Marquis and the Baronet met at the young King's levee. They
mutually recognised each other, and when their respective businesses in
London were finished, they agreed to return together to Lindisfarne.
The tempest which produced such calamitous effects at sea, extended
itself far on the land; and the travellers encountering its worst fury
in the road near Bamborough, the Baronet deemed it prudent to proceed
to the castle, and remain there till the state of the weather would
allow a boat to cross without risque.
During the night, and in the greatest press of the storm, he heard
a gun of distress. A beacon always burnt on what was called the
beltale-tower of the castle; but on the present intimation of some ship
in danger, he ordered other lights to be lit on a promontory which
shot farther into the sea. His life boat also was dispatched to the
assistance of the vessel. It came up with her in the crisis of her
fate; "and the result was," cried Sir Anthony, "she was hauled safely
into the Castle-creek."
"And her freight," rejoined the Marquis, with a smile and a humid eye,
"was Sir Anthony's old friend and our dear de Montemar!"
"Oh, Providence!" piously exclaimed the Pastor, "how measureless ought
to be our gratitude unto thee!"
"It shall be registered on those very rocks where he might have been
wrecked!" returned the Baronet. "When Louis blessed the well known
lights of Bamborough, which had rescued him and his friend from a
watery grave, the proper act of gratitude struck at once upon my mind.
He is to be my heir, and I told him that my ghost should haunt him day
and night, if he did not make those towers for ever after a beacon for
the mariner, and his asylum from the waves! And they shall be so!"
added the Baronet, solemnly striking his hand upon his breast. The
news was soon spread throughout the house. And when Mr. Athelstone
returned from imparting it to the two chambers of the deepest anxiety,
it was with the grateful tears of both Cornelia and Marcella, yet wet
upon his venerable cheeks, that he re-entered the room.
He found that Ferdinand, who was now gone to throw off his wet
garments, had never been within the whole night, but had passed it
in traversing the island from rock to rock, vainly listening to the
roaring ocean; and gazing through the darkness for what he feared, she
should never see again. He was the first object the crossing boat of
Sir Anthony saw on the western cliffs of Lindisfarne. Ferdinand had
descried the little vessel at a distance; and hastening down to see
what it contained, he recognised his father, and soon after was told
the joyful tidings which brought them so early across the strait.
The perils which the yacht had weathered, were not to be described;
and the Duke was so exhausted in consequence, Don Garcia would not
allow him to attempt the island until he had obtained some repose.
"I'faith," continued the Baronet, with a thoughtless laugh; "I believe
I gave my worthy friend but a thorny pillow for his opiad, by telling
him my reception from the young King! Indeed he is so gracious to all
ranks, the friends of a certain Prince may consider it the worst thing
that ever happened to their cause, when their prayers were answered
by the demise of George the First! George the Second understands that
Englishmen are born free and will remain so; and while he, and such as
he, hold the British sceptre, I shall always be one to say, Long live
the House of Brunswick!"
"Amen!" exclaimed the Pastor.
"I do not dissent from your sentiment!" rejoined the Marquis "and
whatever may be my impressions in favour of his royal competitor; I
must admit that while the house of Brunswick is represented by such
a character as the present Prince who fills the throne, James Stuart
can have no hope. To attempt the subversion of a power, founded on the
virtues of the possessor, would be to outrage heaven, and lead on to
unavailing bloodshed. Of this Louis has so thoroughly convinced Duke
Wharton, that even he acknowledges, the little probability of any sword
being drawn again in the contest, either in his life time, or in that
of the present monarch."
This information was very grateful to Mr. Athelstone, as a friend
to freedom and to the church, and also as the guardian of Cornelia
Coningsby. To give her to a man, however estimable in himself, who
was actively engaged against the royal protector of the political and
religious liberties of his country, he hardly knew how to reconcile
with his own loyalty and faith. But the present judgment Duke Wharton
had passed on his own party, seemed to untie the knot, and the worthy
Pastor was satisfied. With this difficulty happily settled in his mind,
it was with a smiling countenance that in the course of the morning, he
re-visited the chamber of her most interested in the subject.
Cornelia was too much shaken by her late mental suffering, to be yet
able to leave her room; but it was with a sensation of some heavenly
balm distilling upon her heart, that she listened to all these things.
That he she loved, was not only reconciled to his God, but had ceased
to deserve the indictment of outlawry, were precious convictions!
though not with any relation to her future union with him; that she
declared impossible.
Mr. Athelstone attended to all she professed, and with the benevolent
spirit of Him who said;--"Neither do I condemn thee.--Go, and sin no
more!" he combated all her agitated arguments against uniting her fate
with the person, she confessed to be dearest to her in the world.
"My Uncle," said she, "am I not commanded, in some cases, to cut off my
right hand? I would do it now."
"In what cases?" inquired the Pastor.
"In those which might separate me from my duty towards my Creator."
"But be careful to distinguish!" replied he, "ask yourself what duty
you will transgress, in becoming the wife of a man, whose errors have
been expiated by repentance; and whose reformation has been proved by
his conduct towards the memory of the Duke of Ripperda, and his zeal
for the rights of his son. I leave you my Cornelia, to ponder on these
things. Be merciful to yourself, and just to Wharton, and heaven will
bless the sentence of your heart!"