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smiling at the reproof his faithful friend Macbean gave the countryman; but without stopping to reason longer on what had passed, he hastened to the ferry, and there was a boat just going over to the island: they took their passage; but as at the inn and in the boat there was not once the mention made of St. Clyde's name, and the sergeant, who now talked French nearly as well as English, was in plain clothes as well as his captain; the people of the wherry, being Lamlash men, thought our travellers were a foreign gentleman and his servant going on a tour through the Hebrides.

It was three in the morning when they crossed the ferry, and landed at the shore of Schuloch; and without stopping on the beach, both went off to the caim of St. Clyde, "to surprise," as Colin said to Macbean, "his father, and mother, and sisters!"

They had not travelled half a mile, when the sky was beclouded, the rain fell fast, it descended in torrents; the lightnings flashed from the clouds. to the hills, and from the hills they sped their rapid motion to the bottom of the deep; the thunder rolled from cloud to cloud, and from the mountains to the valleys: it seemed as if all nature were going to dissolve itself.

In the midst of this tempest, St. Clyde and the sergeant, completely drenched with rain, took refuge for an hour in a cave on the sea-shore; and when the fury of the storm had abated considerably, they pursued their journey, and arrived by five o'clock in the morning at the caim of St. Clyde. As they approached the house, Bran, a fine wolf-dog that had belonged to the house before Colin left home, came springing upon him, and at the

first leap kissed his cheek and then his hands, and it was, with difficulty he could terrify the animal into the obedience of his species. But the sight of the whip brought it to respect the son of St. Clyde, and the animal ran with the fleetness of an arrow to the house, and barked, and howled, and scratched with its paws the knocker of the door with so much savage joy, that Louis Villejuive came to an upper window, and called out, "Who's there ?"

"A friend!" replied Colin.

"Good God! St. Clyde!" and down the young man flew, and in an instant they were fast locked in each other's kind embrace. The other son had gone to Rothsay the evening before, and had not returned.

After one of those luxuries which the sight of a long-lost friend supplies

us with, Colin exclaimed, "How are

my

father and mother ?"

"Your father and mother!"

Aye, and my sisters, how are

they?"

"Ah! Colin: O God! what is this? Have you seen nobody since you landed, Colin ?"

"Seen any one? none, save the men of the ferry-boat we crossed with; it was not a morning for people to be out. But do not keep me here-I must go up stairs."

"Colin! Colin! have you not heard?” "Heard, heard, Louis! heard what?” "Your father and mother are no more !"

"O God! what do I hear! My father dead! dead!-and my mother! did you say she was dead also?"

"O Colin! O! she is, they are both"

"Both dead!-O Jesus!-but my sisters! my parentless sisters, how are they?"

"Ellen is very well, Colin."

"But Norah,-speak, Louis, how is she? Where is she? Why burst into tears, Louis? are these for Norah? What is that motion of your hand the signaldost thou point to the dust to her too?" "Ellen, my dear Colin, Ellen still lives."

"And the others,-my father--my mother-and Norah dead? and Ellen and I of all our family,-what, three of my family dead?"

"It is too true; and you, you, my dear Colin-you were supposed to be dead."

66

Where, where's Ellen? is she up

stairs in her chamber?"

"At the manse, my dear Colin." "Then, good-bye now, I go to see her."

"Nay, stop here; you are all wet."

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