"are growing dim, an' surely no
wonder; but yet I think I should ken that boatman. Is it no Eachen
Macinla o' Tarbet?"

"Hard-hearted, cruel old man," exclaimed the maiden, "what can be taking
him here? Look how his skiff shoots in like an arrow on the long roll o'
the surf!--an' now she is high on the beach. How unfeeling it was o' him
to rob you o' your little property in the very first o' your grief! But,
see, he is so worn out that he can hardly walk over the rough stones.
Ah, me, he is down! wretched old man. I must run to his assistance--but
no, he has risen again. See he is coming straight to the house; an' now
he is at the door." In a moment after, Eachen entered the cottage.

"I am perishing, Lillias," he said, "with cold an' hunger, an' can gang
nae farther; surely ye'll no shut your door on me in a night like this."

The poor widow had been taught in a far different school. She
relinquished to the worn-out fisherman her seat by the fire, now
hurriedly heaped with fresh fuel, and hastened to set before him the
simple viands which her cottage afforded.

As the night darkened, the storm increased. The wind roared among the
rocks like the rattling of a thousand carriages over a paved street; and
there were times when, after a sudden pause, the blast struck the
cottage, as if it were a huge missile flung against it, and pressed on
its roof and walls till the very floor rocked, and the rafters strained
and shivered like the beams of a stranded vessel. There was a ceaseless
patter of mingled rain and snow--now lower, now louder; and the fearful
thunderings of the waves, as they raged among the pointed crags, was
mingled with the hoarse roll of the storm along the beach. The old man
sat beside the fire, fronting the widow and her companion, with his head
reclined nearly as low as his knee, and his hands covering his face.
There was no attempt at conversation. He seemed to shudder every time
the blast yelled along the roof; and, as a fiercer gust burst open the
door, there was a half-muttered ejaculation.

"Heaven itsel hae mercy on them! for what can man do in a night like
this?"

"It is black as pitch," exclaimed Helen, who had risen to draw the bolt;
"an' the drift flies sae thick that it feels to the hand like a solid
snaw wreath. An', oh, how it lightens?"

"Heaven itsel hae mercy on them!" again ejaculated the old man. "My two
boys," said he, addressing the widow, "are at the far Frith; an' how can
an o