Such was the gloomy state of affairs at home; while abroad all was wrapped in a cloud of mysterious uncertainty. Day after day we met each other in melancholy estrangement. No joyous open countenance smiled upon the social board. No cheerful conversation seasoned the frugal repast. A deadly silence knew no interruption except from some endeavour at dry uninteresting common place, which, like a doubtful light that serves but to "render darkness visible," had the effect of saddening, rather than enlivening our domestic group. My father was afraid to trust himself with uttering a syllable which might lead to discourse upon exasperating topics, while grief appeared to choke my mother's voice. Her changing form proclaimed the undermining work which was going on within, and sapping the vital holds of her constitution. Oh! and her unnatural sons were so insensible to her decline, that though witnessing its progress, we neither tried to mitigate the symptoms, nor to console, though it might not be permitted us to remedy. No length of life can abate the pain with which I cast my eyes back upon that angelic being; nor can the penance of self-reproach extract the sting which is fixed in my breast by the memory of ingratitude towards a matchless parent, now no more.

It was our custom to separate directly after dinner, each desirous to shorten a period of restraint, and pursue individual occupation or device. When the weather was fine, we were generally out of doors, and contrived to avoid the tea-table, family prayers, and "good night;" a parting wish now reduced to lifeless form by the absence of that affection which, where it grows, imparts and receives a new spring at each recurring assurance of its existence. Our evenings were sometimes employed in secretly furthering the United Irish Correspondence; at others in galloping over moorland and mountain, according to appointment with our fellow conspirators, with whom we had clandestine meetings almost every day.

Every hour was big with rumour; and suspicion of treasonable designs began to fall on many of the higher classes. Informations poured continually into the castle of Dublin. The lower ranks were universally disaffected, while numbers of the gentry were paralyzed by vague and painful terrors of the coming explosion. The co-operation of the French was hoped for by one party, as it was dreaded by the other; and all believed that the first successful landing which was effected on our coasts, would prove the signal for a simultaneous rising of the people. Many were secretly departing from their homes to wait the issue in a place of safety. Others, unable to quit their local property, or desert their duty, were employed in using precautionary means to meet the threatened danger. Revolt and massacre were talked of. Servants were unfaithful to their masters. Tenants conspired against their landlords. The kind "good morrow" of the passing rustic was converted into a sullen scowl; and all the friendly courtesy of intercourse between high and low was exchanged, at this awful juncture, for distrust on one side, and hatred on the other. Our moral condition resembled that in the physical world which precedes the horrible visitation of an earthquake—darkness and the silence of death pervaded the scene of former life and occupation; and imagination fabricated a thousand spectres still more terrific than those perils by which the loyal part of the community were really surrounded.

It was the evening of the 10th of February, 1798, when the weather, which had been unusually mild for the time of year, became suddenly tremendous. The sky lowered; and torrents of rain broke loose from the clouds, as if a water-spout had that moment burst over Glendruid. Such was the unremitting violence of this deluge that no one could quit the shelter of a roof, and the whole family found themselves in the unusual situation of being imprisoned for several hours together beneath its protection.

The consciousness of having done wrong is as powerful a separatist in morals, as the principle of caloric in physics; and though confined within a space of not very wide dimensions, we contrived to keep aloof from each other. Sensible of the deep wounds which we had inflicted, my brothers and I had no inclination to encounter the reproach which we justly deserved, and therefore avoided giving an opportunity for accusation. Not as yet visited by remorse, we had no desire to make reparation, and therefore sought to escape the scrutiny which we resolved should not be satisfied.

The unceasing drench, however, which I have mentioned, prevented us from leaving the house, and we were at last obliged to assemble, not having any excuse to allege for resisting a summons to that effect. Tea being finished, and night closing fast upon the dejected circle, they drew their chairs involuntarily round a sullen fire, which none of the party appeared inclined to stir, lest a cheerful blaze might seem too strongly contrasted with the gloomy features on which it played. The wind began to rise, howling at first a piteous wail and moaning through every crevice which gave it vent. After a solemn pause, it would then burst at intervals into gusts which threatened to sweep the earth and its inhabitants away.

What a being is man! This tempest, heightened at length to fury, was the first occurrence which roused within my breast the long unawakened sense of our deplorable state. There is something in a violent strife of elements which forces itself upon the most obdurate spirit, and strikes conviction of human weakness on the mind. As I glanced from time to time on the pale and agitated countenances around me, I felt oppressed by a sensation which was not easy to define. It was neither fear nor affection, but it was a mixture of repentance, with that desire of communion natural to most mortals under the influence of extraordinary excitement. The billows roared tremendously, and every dash of the sea against the dark and frowning cliffs which beetled over the flood, came rolling on like thunder. The convulsions of the country rendered the storm awfully impressive; the ear was held in fearful tension, while uncertain sounds mingled in the blast like shouts of human voices, approaching and receding, rising and dying away again.

It was a dreadful night; but as no enemy advanced, and imagination seemed more busy than reality, in threatening danger, the family retired a little later than usual to their several apartments. When I reached mine, overcome by the struggle of feelings which too often slumbered, I threw myself into an old arm-chair near the head of my bed, and would have given more than I possessed, that tears such as I once could shed, had come to my relief, but tears would not flow.

"Good God," I exclaimed, "can this hardening of the heart—this stifling of natural sympathies—this close, secretive, frigid philosophy—be the road to happiness? Are those who have thrown off the ties of religion, and learned to contemn the commandments of their Creator, in the path of peace and virtue?"

These and other self-directed questions were put to my heart in the stillness of solitary examination, and the answer of conscience appalled me. I prostrated myself on my knees, and I, who would not give my parents the satisfaction of thinking that I ever sent up a petition to heaven, now fell instinctively into the language of supplication, and broke into an agony of prayer. A few minutes more, and I firmly believe that I should have been found weeping on my mother's neck. How she would have clasped the penitent to her bosom! But in the very instant when I was rising from the ground, the door of my room was gently opened, and she who had little reason to love or care for me, urged by all that powerful impulse of maternal solicitude which never sleeps, put in her head to assure herself that her ungracious child was safely protected by the shelter of his chamber from the hurricane which denied her repose.

This unexpected apparition worked a sudden revolution in my feelings. Ashamed and mortified at having been caught in a posture of humiliation, my wretched pride regained its empire, and I rudely inquired of my mother what she wanted.

"Only to see that you were here, Albert; God bless you," was her soft reply.

She closed the door, and my contrition was at an end; the yearnings of returning affection were given to the winds, and locking my door with an angry violence, which I intended should say, "I will not again suffer such intrusion," I extinguished my candle in a rage, and plunged into my bed, but not to rest. To sleep was not so easy; the storm increased every moment, and though I had never been wanting in the animal boldness called courage, I had a chill at heart that night as if the phials of Almighty wrath were pouring out upon a guilty world, and the judgment of God preparing punishment for the wicked.

In spite of all the sophistry with which my tongue had become familiar, conscience was not silenced, but forced the reluctant confession, that my associates and I were mischievously engaged in aiding a rebellion which would probably terminate in much bloodshed and misery, while true patriotism was the last motive that influenced our conduct. The fact was, that like all agitators we were impelled by motives as various as the several characters on which they operated, and were kept together by an imaginary bond to which, for the convenience of compact, we gave a name very foreign from our real purposes, and in reality little connected with the welfare of our country. I knew even at the time when I was most closely leagued with the Talbots and Lovetts, that they were both selfish and violent. These young men governed the rest of our confederacy with despotic sway, to which, with all our boasted independence, we implicitly submitted.

Thus are we cajoled in every stage of our existence. Perpetually deceiving ourselves, we applaud or revile not the principle but its application, and the same conduct which is the theme of our reprobation becomes that of our praise and adoption, when happening to chime in with our prejudices or our wishes.

I was in a musing vein, and notwithstanding the riot of conflicting elements abroad, I lay pondering mournfully and restlessly, when my cogitations were interrupted by a gun. I started up, and by the time that I groped my way to the lobby, I found the whole family assembled. My mother stood in a listening attitude, holding a little lamp, which she always kept burning at night, in her hand, and ere we had time to interchange a sentence, the sound of a second shot put an end to all uncertainty, and the only point left to conjecture was the cause of this firing. Some thought that we were going to be invaded by a rebel party, while others feared that a ship had foundered in the bay.

As the latter belief preponderated, it was suggested that we should instantly sally forth to the cliffs, and try whether it might not be possible to render assistance to the sufferers. Here was a crisis which broke through the reserve which had become habitual amongst us, by one of those forcible appeals to humanity that bear down whatever is not in unison with their own prompt and virtuous impulse. All memory of bitterness was now suspended in the common interest excited by the occasion.

Reader, have you ever known the unaccountable perverseness of a stubborn soul, in the pride of unsubdued passion, resolved to be miserable rather than abate a high spirit, though you longed, with gasping impatience, for any event which, without your own intervention, might place you once more at ease with those whom you had offended? If you have, my sensations at this moment will not seem strange to you. I had not expressed any sorrow for the past, nor lowered my dignity by any promise of amendment for the future; yet here I was on a sudden, running to and fro, and talking familiarly with father, mother, brothers, and sisters, as if harmony had never been disturbed. Those, on the other hand, who have never experienced the perversion of mind of which I am giving a history, will find it difficult to comprehend how this hour of dismay and anxiety should have been the happiest which I had known for a long time, resembling what a man feels on the removal of a burthen which had pressed with intolerable weight on every muscle of his frame.

An old Scotchman, who had grown grey in our service, was one of the first who appeared in the group, and lighting a candle, which he put into the great stable-lanthorn, he called Harold, Charles, and me, to accompany him. Away we flew, and many minutes did not elapse before we reached the steepest part of the headland which overhung our bay.

What a scene presented itself! The rain had ceased, but it blew a perfect hurricane; the scud drove furiously across the sky, while now and then the broken beams of an angry moon darted on the ocean a wild and scattered light from under dense masses of the blackest clouds, which sped athwart the heavens as if bent on some message of destruction; the waves rolled mountains high, and dashed with wild impetuosity upon the rocks, roaring in thunder as they approached the shore. Gun after gun was fired, but at such a distance that we despaired of being useful. We knew not how or whither to direct our efforts, but stood close together, trying to resist the force of the tempest, and endeavouring to catch any sound that might guide us to the scene of distress, when the shriek of a female voice, borne distinctly upon the blast, afforded dreadful assurance of shipwreck near at hand. The cries were repeated with increased agony, and were louder or fainter as the wind rose or fell.

With one accord we hurried down the rocks as fast as the irregular crags over which we had to scramble would permit. As we descended, a fearful scream of anguish met our ears, after which we heard no more. All but the raging of the storm then died away, and by the time that we reached the bottom of the cliff no sound of human woe mingled in the gale.

A poor fisherman and his family lived at a little distance in a cavity amongst the rocks, and thither we next directed our steps. I was the first to gain this miserable hut, the door of which I found wide open, swinging to and fro on its crazy hinges. We called aloud to Kelly, his wife, and sons, but received no answer. M'Farlane, the old Scotchman, proposed that we should go farther down along the shore to a little creek, in which Kelly's boat was usually moored. When arrived at the spot, there was no boat there. We hallooed again, but in vain; no living being seemed within hearing; all was silent save the winds and waves. As the tide was rapidly retiring we groped along the sands, holding the lanthorn close to the ground, and searching, as carefully as its uncertain glimmer would allow, for any vestige of the wreck, which we concluded that day-light would but too fully exhibit.

While thus employed, Harold's foot struck against something soft which, on examination, proved to be a small spaniel with a collar round its neck. The poor animal was quite dead, and holding it up to the light, we read the name of Henry Talbot. The shock of this discovery was indescribable. A thousand vague, yet terrible surmises rushed upon my imagination, and before we were able to retrace our path to Kelly's hut, where we determined to wait the break of day, an oar over which I stumbled, and which we found branded at one end with the letters D. K. afforded awful conviction that a dreadful catastrophe had involved the unfortunate fisherman, and perhaps others, in a watery grave.

We took up the oar on our shoulders, and on reaching Kelly's cabin, which had been empty when we first visited it, we were not a little surprised to find his wife lying flat without signs of life upon the clay floor. We raised her, and perceiving that she was not dead, placed her gently on the wretched trestle, which, covered with straw, and a blanket, served for a bed in this lowly habitation; and taking the candle from our lanthorn lighted a few dry sticks which were piled in a corner. We then removed poor Norah to the fire, took off her old water-soaked cloak, and began to rub her hands and feet with all our strength. We discovered a bundle of rushes too, which having been dipped in grease, serve the poor Irish in place of candles, and were glad to avail ourselves of their feeble aid, not only for presenting some sort of beacon to any vessel which might be nearing the rocks, but also to assist our search for any thing with which to moisten the lips of the dying woman.

At length I discovered a bottle which held a remainder drop of whisky, and seizing on this treasure, we hastened to try its life-restoring powers on our patient. While my brothers and I were thus busily occupied, M'Farlane drew from the corner cupboard, in which I had found the bottle, a small bit of soiled paper folded up, on which, when opened, the following words appeared written in printing characters, apparently for the purpose of disguising the hand that traced them.

"Be sure not to fail us. You know the place, and the hour. A vessel will lie to, off the Bay. Let nothing tempt you to betray him. A better reward than money will crown fidelity. Finish the good work which you have begun. I depend also on Norah and the boys. If we succeed in getting him safely out of the country, all will be well. She will see him on board, which I am sorry for, as the weather is unpromising. We must land at the Black Point, after doing our job. This goes by a sure hand. Be prepared early; read, and burn.

"Yours, truly ——"

"Hah, hah!" cried M'Farlane. "I see plainly enough now how it is. Here is a plot, and the plotters are taken in their own snare. A heavy judgment from Heaven is come upon them."

I sprang towards him, and snatched the paper from his hand, anxious to prevent him from getting hold of information not intended for him; but he had read all the contents; and though there was neither name nor date to apprise us of the actors, it was plain enough that Kelly and his sons had been employed with their boat to convey some mysterious personage from the coast; while it was equally manifest that the writer of the billet, whoever he might be, and the female to whom he alluded, designed to return, after executing their trust, and placing their charge securely on board a vessel ready to steer, in all probability, for France or America.

M'Farlane could never be induced to take part in any of our schemes, and had lavished much useless advice to deter me and my brothers from joining in what he called "the wicked folly of the times." He was hence a person of whom we stood in some awe, and with whom we held very little communion, considering him, as we did, no better than a spy; and I felt exceedingly vexed and annoyed at his having been set on spelling and putting together these few dark words, which told sufficient to excite curiosity.

I turned and twisted the paper which had been crumpled up, and was probably reserved for lighting Kelly's pipe, in performing which office, the poor fellow seemed to think it would be time enough to obey the injunctions of his correspondent by destroying it. The words already noticed were written with pen and ink, but on minuter scrutiny, I deciphered on the outside, scrawled with a pencil, and nearly illegible, a sentence which was apparently designed as a postscript to the note.

"Take care, and let not a syllable escape your lips up the hill. Many matters now afloat, must be kept secret from that quarter."

What is the meaning, thought I to myself, of "up the hill?" and it instantly flashed across my mind, that Glendruid was the place indicated by this expression, and that I was one of those to be kept in the dark respecting all proceedings. We who had toiled early and late, sacrificed food and rest, frequently hazarded life and liberty; and spent every shilling which we could command, were to be treated as aliens, as enemies!

Is this gratitude? exclaimed I. I hastily resolved to separate myself immediately from men thus undeserving of confidence; such treachery was intolerable, and I longed for an opportunity of resenting it, though caution would be necessary, lest I might injure my cause with Albinia by renouncing all future league with her brothers. My resolution was not the result of good feeling, it was only the effervescence of sudden indignation, and events succeeded which prevented its practical steadiness from being brought to the test.

During the short interval in which I was engaged by these reflections, my brothers continued their efforts to revive the cold-stricken Norah. After many fruitless efforts, they at length accomplished their object. A few drops of the cordial whisky were swallowed, and in a little time she opened her eyes, which she rolled wildly round, and starting from her bed, shrieked aloud—

"Oh Dan a Vourneen, where are you? Where is Jack? Where is Timsey?"

Her eyes lighting on our faces, not those of her husband and children, she relapsed into another swoon, long and deep, from which we had great difficulty in recovering her.

At last she sat up, and clasped her sun-burned hands together in an agony of grief, rocking her body backwards and forwards to a piteous wail, which the Irish call Ullagone; the dirge music in which they mourn their dead. She gave no answer to our entreaties that she would try and compose herself. In vain did we inquire what had happened, and ask how we could possibly afford her any relief. She did not reply to a single question, but rolling her tearless eyes in their sockets, staring now at one of us, and then at another, but without appearing to take notice of any, the hapless creature continued her melancholy howl, beating her breast and tearing her hair.

At the expiration of an hour's ineffectual effort to obtain the slightest information from Norah, we determined on removing her from a scene so dreadful as that of her now lonely abode, leaving M'Farlane behind to watch the fire till our return. Just as we were going to take Norah from her cabin, the sagacious Scotchman bethought him of an expedient which operated like magic on the wretched mourner. He recollected the national superstition, and exclaimed, in an expostulatory tone, "Oh then, is it like a fond wife or mother, to say, that you'd let their ghosts roam for ever and ever, without rest or quiet, rather than tell where we might look for the bodies, and bury 'em like Christians?"

This idea roused Norah's torpid senses. She started as if she had been shot, and would have rushed out of the house, if we had not fastened the door in the instant that she was about to dart through it.

"Yes, Norah," said the persevering Scot, "they will wander, and be unhappy, if you do not tell all you know, and let us try and find them, that they may be waked properly, and buried with their people."

"God bless you; God bless you;" reiterated the frenzied Norah; "Go to the Black Pint; och, 'tis the Black Pint."

"What took them to the Black Point at this unseasonable hour, and in such a storm?"

"What else but the boat, gramachree," answered Norah.

"What were they doing in such weather as this?"

"Fishen, dear, fishen," was the poor creature's lying answer.

"No, that is impossible, Norah," said I; "you must not deceive those who would befriend you. Dan Kelly knew too well when it was coming on to blow hard. He would not venture his own life or that of his sons in such a night as this. It is no fishing time. Tell what you can of the affair and every help shall be given you."

"I knows nauthen, asthore. For the honour o' God, dear, ax me no more, for I can't tell any thin but only that they war strugglen home agin the tide, and were maken straight for Black Pint when a big wave (oh then, oh then, oh then!) hised away the boat and capsized it. There's no more to be tould, only my darlens is gone, holy Mary mark 'em to glory, and 'tis I that's dissolit to day." Norah wept bitterly as she uttered these words. I besought her to tell me who, beside her husband and sons, had been buffeting the billows in the boat on that awful night.

"How does your honour think I can tell! 'Tis enough for me, that them that's gone, is gone. Oh! cuishla machree, Timsey, my darlen of all my darlens."

Mac Farlane, perceiving that I made no great way in my catechism, brought forward the little dog, which had lain by in a dark corner of the cabin, and carelessly turning it with his foot, said, in a soliloquizing manner, "Poor little brute! you are more lucky than your master. He is gone, to be sure, with the rest of 'em, and will be without christian burial too, while you will be laid in the ground as if you had a soul to be saved. I wonder, Mr. Albert, whether the party in the boat were lost before they reached the ship, or whether they ever were able to put the stranger on board." Norah had not till now seen either the oar or the dead dog, and fell into the most extravagant lamentations at sight of them. Terrified at finding M'Farlane, as she now believed, in the secret, she fell on her knees, and in a tone of the most earnest supplication entreated that he would not divulge a single particular.

"Some of 'em may be alive yet. May be all wouldn't be drownded, and if they war, the sperrets o' the dead, Misther Mickfaarlin, would never laive you alone if you spaik. Oh! Sir, and the widdy's blessen on you, don't be villeefyen them that's gone. Laive 'em quite any way, for they've enough to trouble 'em without that."

"I wouldn't harm the dead, woman," said M'Farlane, "any more than you. 'Tis a pitiful case. Only tell his name, and her name who was with him, and your fortune is as good as made. If you speak truth, my master will send an account of it all to the castle o' Dublin, and you'll be sure of a purse o' gold that will keep you in comfort for the rest o' your life."

"I'll tell nauthen but what you know," replied the sobbing Norah; "and there's no use in axing me, for I'll die before I tells upon 'em. What do I want of cumfurt now? If money would make tell-tales of any that lived in this cabin, as poor as it is, would'nt we be riden in a coche and six long ago fur spaiken plain, but though they're down in the salt sai, I'll not fret 'em, I'll hould my tongue, and Misther Mickfaarlin, if you war'nt a sassenah (no offence, Sir), you would'nt be the one to turn the harts o'the dead frum me. Oh then! oh then! a wee-nough Dan, and Tom, and Timsey asthore! If 'tis a thing that they braiks every bone in my body, or cuts out my tongue, they'll get no good o' me, for the sorra a word I'll spaik, no more than the dead himself."

No cunning of M'Farlane's could elicit farther, and though so strongly prompted by curiosity, which triumphed over every other feeling, that I had endeavoured myself to come at the bottom of the melancholy tale, I admired the noble devotedness of this affectionate woman, upon whom no sordid motive had the slightest influence. She would willingly have laid down her life, rather than betray the cause to which she had sworn fealty. Oh! how the generous heroism of poor Norah, and her enthusiastic fidelity even to the shades of those who had been dear to her, put to shame all who, without a spark of disinterested zeal, first involved, and then abandoned a people, many of whom gave proofs like this of the tenderest and most unselfish attachment. Norah, suddenly recollecting that the removal of the dog might damp the spirit of investigation, seized a spade which stood in the hut against the wall, and turning up the clay floor within the hurdle which served as a partition between the outer division of her hut, and the interior where she slept, deposited the little animal, collar and all, filling the hole, and stamping the ground with her feet to make all smooth as it was before. In this labour of love towards the memory of the departed, her grief seemed forgotten in her anxiety to conceal whatever might injure any survivor whose cause her husband and children had espoused.