d sat down beside
the casement, to enjoy its refreshing influence. The candles had burned
down in the apartment, and the fire, now reduced to a mere mass of red
embers, scarce threw a gleam beyond the broad hearth-stone. The old
tower itself flung a dark shadow upon the rock, and across the road
beneath it, and, except in the chamber of the sick boy, in a distant
part of the building, not a light was to be seen.

The night was calm and star-lit: a stillness almost painful reigned
around. It seemed as if exhausted nature, tired with the work of storm
and hurricane, had sunk into a deep and wearied sleep. Thousands of
bright stars speckled the dark sky; yet the light they shed upon the
earth, but dimly distinguished mountain and valley, save where the'
calm surface of the lake gave back their lustre, in a heaven, placid
and motionless as their own. Now and then, a bright meteor would shoot
across the blue vault, and disappear in the darkness; while in tranquil
splendour, the planets shone on, as though to say, the higher destiny
is to display an eternal brightness, than the brilliancy of momentary
splendour, however glittering its wide career.

The young man gazed upon the sky. The lessons which, from human lips, he
had rejected with scorn and impatience, now sunk deeply into his nature,
from those silent monitors. The stars looked down, like eyes, into his
very soul, and he felt as if he could unburthen his whole heart of its
weary load, and make a confidence with heaven.

"They point ever downwards," said he to himself, as he watched the
bright streak of the falling stars, and moralized on their likeness to
man's destiny. But as he spoke, a red line shot up into the sky, and
broke into ten thousand glittering spangles, shedding over glen and
mountain, a faint but beauteous gleam, scarce more lasting than the
meteor's flash. It was a rocket sent up from the border of the Bay, and
was quickly answered by another from the remote end of the Glen. The
youth started, and leaning out from the window, looked down the valley;
but nothing was to be seen or heard--all was silent as before, and
already the flash of the signals, for such they must have been he could
not doubt, had faded away, and the sky shone in its own spangled beauty.

"They are smugglers!" muttered Mark, as he sank back in his chair; for
in that wild district such signals were employed without much fear, by
those who either could trust the revenue as accompli