struggling in his agony to express his denial more distinctly, he
awoke.

It was, however, conscience that had prepared this mental phantasmagoria.
The truth was that, knowing much better than any other person the haunts
of the smugglers, he had, while the others were searching in different
directions, gone straight to the cave, even before he had learned the
murder of Kennedy, whom he expected to find their prisoner. He came upon
them with some idea of mediation, but found them in the midst of their
guilty terrors, while the rage which had hurried them on to murder began,
with all but Hatteraick, to sink into remorse and fear. Glossin was then
indigent and greatly in debt, but he was already possessed of Mr.
Bertram's ear, and, aware of the facility of his disposition, he saw no
difficulty in enriching himself at his expense, provided the heir-male
were removed, in which case the estate became the unlimited property of
the weak and prodigal father. Stimulated by present gain and the prospect
of contingent advantage, he accepted the bribe which the smugglers
offered in their terror, and connived at, or rather encouraged, their
intention of carrying away the child of his benefactor who, if left
behind, was old enough to have described the scene of blood which he had
witnessed. The only palliative which the ingenuity of Glossin could offer
to his conscience was, that the temptation was great, and came suddenly
upon him, embracing as it were the very advantages on which his mind had
so long rested, and promising to relieve him from distresses which must
have otherwise speedily overwhelmed him. Besides, he endeavoured to think
that self-preservation rendered his conduct necessary. He was, in some
degree, in the power of the robbers, and pleaded hard with his conscience
that, had he declined their offers, the assistance which he could have
called for, though not distant, might not have arrived in time to save
him from men who, on less provocation, had just committed murder.

Galled with the anxious forebodings of a guilty conscience, Glossin now
arose and looked out upon the night. The scene which we have already
described in the third chapter of this story, was now covered with snow,
and the brilliant, though waste, whiteness of the land gave to the sea by
contrast a dark and livid tinge. A landscape covered with snow, though
abstractedly it may be called beautiful, has, both from the association
of cold and barrenness and