and scorching breath upon her cheek, as though she already felt their
unutterable import in the abysses of woe!

Conscience, long slumbering, seemed to awake; she was seized with the
anguish of despair! It seemed as though judgment were passed, and she
was doomed to wander like some rayless orb in the blackness of darkness
for ever. One fearful undefined form of terror was before her; one
consciousness of offence ever present; all idea of past and future
absorbed in one ever-during NOW, she felt that her misery was too heavy
to sustain. A groan escaped her lips, but it was an appeal to that power
for deliverance, who is not slow to hear, "nor impotent to save."
Suddenly she was roused from some deep and overpowering hallucination;
the promises of unlimited gratification to every wish prevailed no more,
the tempter's charm was broken. All was changed; the whole scene seemed
to vanish; and that form, which once appeared to her like an angel of
light, fell prostrate, writhing away in terrific and tortuous folds on
the hissing earth. The crowd scattered with a fearful yell;--she heard
a rush of wings, and a loud and dissonant scream,--and the "Bride of
Bernshaw" fell senseless to the ground.

We leave the conscience-stricken victim whilst we relate the result of
Robin's watch-night at the mill.

He lay awake until midnight, but there was no disturbance; nothing was
heard but the plash of the mill-stream, and the dripping ooze from the
rocks. His old enemies, no doubt, were intimidated, and he was about
commencing a snug nap on the idea--when, lo! there came a great rush of
wind. He heard it booming on from a vast distance, until it seemed to
sweep over the building in one wide resistless torrent that might have
levelled the stoutest edifice;--yet was the mill unharmed by the attack.
Then came shrieks and yells, mingled with the most horrid imprecations.
Swift as thought, there rushed upon him a prodigious company of cats,
bats, and all manner of hideous things, that scratched and pinched him,
as he afterwards declared, until his flesh verily "reeked" again.
Maddened by the torment, he began to lay about him lustily with a long
whittle which he carried for domestic purposes. They gave back at so
unexpected a reception. Taking courage thereby, Robin followed, and they
fled, helter-skelter, like a routed army. Through loop-holes and windows
went the obscene crew, with such hideous screeches as startled the whole
neighbourho