e between the beach and the
mainland, to the height of two or three hundred feet, afforded in
their crevices shelter for unnumbered sea-fowl, in situations seemingly
secured by their dizzy height from the rapacity of man. Many of these
wild tribes, with the instinct which sends them to seek the land before
a storm arises, were now winging towards their nests with the shrill and
dissonant clang which announces disquietude and fear. The disk of the
sun became almost totally obscured ere he had altogether sunk below the
horizon, and an early and lurid shade of darkness blotted the serene
twilight of a summer evening. The wind began next to arise; but its
wild and moaning sound was heard for some time, and its effects became
visible on the bosom of the sea, before the gale was felt on shore. The
mass of waters, now dark and threatening, began to lift itself in larger
ridges, and sink in deeper furrows, forming waves that rose high in
foam upon the breakers, or burst upon the beach with a sound resembling
distant thunder.

Appalled by this sudden change of weather, Miss Wardour drew close to
her father, and held his arm fast. "I wish," at length she said,
but almost in a whisper, as if ashamed to express her increasing
apprehensions, "I wish we had kept the road we intended, or waited at
Monkbarns for the carriage."

Sir Arthur looked round, but did not see, or would not acknowledge, any
signs of an immediate storm. They would reach Knockwinnock, he said,
long before the tempest began. 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 centre 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, Sir Arthur observed a human
figure on the beach advancing to meet them. "Thank God," he exclaimed,
"we shall get