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SECTION I.

"Now Heaven walks on earth."

SHAKSPEARE'S TWELFTH NIGHT.

"For he maketh the storm to cease, so that the waves thereof are still." PSALM, CVII.

THE morning after the stormy and fearful night described in the last Chapter, found Mr. Campbell and St. Lawrence on the leads of a high tower which overlooked the interior of Castle Campbell, and commanded a wide prospect of sea, and shore, and distant islands, extending as far as the stupendous promontory of Fair Head on the opposite coast of Ireland. They had ascended this commanding terrace with a view to ascertain the damages, whatever they were, which so perilous a night might have occasioned. With the exception, however, of two or three boats that had been staved on the beach, and a few cottages unroofed, all was comparatively calm, made more so by contrast. The sea, indeed, still swelled in immense and reverberating undulations, but without those mountainous waves that had been so terrific. At the same time something like a sul

len and lowing swell at a distance, continued to affect the timid part of Campbell Town with fears of Sawney Bean, by no means yet entirely allayed. In other respects the contrast was wonderful. The sun shone out with a light and warmth that were exhilarating; and though detached glomerations of clouds chased one another, now heavily, now swiftly, over the vault of Heaven, yet they rested no where, and at length escaped into the horizon, leaving the stout old castle that had been so buffeted, in full possession of its strength, and its beautiful blue sea. The last, if not calm, now dashed fainter and fainter against the rocks that formed the base of the castle; only throwing up now and then a little spray, as if merely to show it was still there. Even this at length died away; so changed and soothing was the altered scene.

66

"How wonderful this is!" said St. Lawrence; to look at this prospect now, one would suppose you had never any other than halcyon days upon this rugged coast of yours, spite of Sawney Bean, and all other permitted persecutors of the Campbells from the other world.”

"You think, then,” replied the Laird, “in common with many of my neighbours, that Sawney, as a McLeod once had the insolence to tell us, is

really allowed to persecute the Campbells 'for nae gude that they did?""

"I know not," returned St. Lawrence, "how far these descendants of the old Solemn-League-andCovenant men, who only owned the Almighty even as their temporal prince, may, like their ancestors, believe he still continues to reward and punish in this world as in aforetime; but though, if there had been such a dispensation, it is now undoubtedly at an end, with the Macbriars, the Kettledrummies, and the Davy Deans, who upheld that doctrine, the opinion is at least better than that which supposes the Being who made us cares nothing for the creatures he has made, but leaves all to chance and our own wilfulness."

"This savours much of our last night's speculation," observed Campbell, "in which I allow one of your illustrations, at least, was rather startling, particularly with my friends below there, who almost mobbed me for hazarding a doubt about the appearance of the Offley spirit. You told the story well. But now we are alone, if it is not an unfair question (which, as you are not even a divine, much less a bishop), perhaps it is not, may I ask if you believe one tittle of this miracle yourself?"

"I believe all that I have told you," replied St. Lawrence; "which, pray observe, by no means

amounted to a miracle, but only an event, seemingly preternatural, which might be the mere ebullition of fancy in a man brooding intensely perhaps on one idea, but which, being followed by such important consequences, assumes the air of reality."

"The reality itself, then," said Campbell, "you do not believe; and I am willing to allow your tale to be an extraordinary, perhaps the most extraordinary presumption of an interposing Providence I ever heard. You say yourself, however, that it was a mere fancy of the man, and that fancy fortuitous. As a serious argument for the interference of Heaven, the matter must therefore be given up."

"Not quite so easily," observed St. Lawrence; "for though we may say that the spirit of Sir John Offley did not, by a command of the Almighty, appear in a real visible shape, and actually speak with living breath, yet not the less, according to all my theories and notions of the conduct of human events by a superhuman power, might this fancied appearance have been the designed mode of bringing about what really was accomplished."

"You mean the restoration of the estate?" "I do."

"Then pardon me if I am a stern unbeliever, if only from the total inadequacy of the reason for

what, if you are right in your opening (though you have not explained it), ought, it should seem, to have been a million of times more important than the mere restoration of property to a simple individual, when thousands are daily as much wronged without any interference at all. Colonel Gardener's famous story gives a more plausible reason for his vision (the conversion of a sinner), than this, the mere preservation of filthy lucre."

"I have already observed," replied St. Lawrence," that I asserted no miracle; nor have I stickled even for interference, farther than that universal cognizance and regulation which I hold are exercised by the Creator and Governor of the World, through the intervention of second causes : a constitution of things which I suppose you do not deny."

“I neither affirm nor deny any thing at present," replied Campbell; "but shall be glad to hear how a ghost, a thing not in nature, can be a second cause?"

66 Again," said St. Lawrence, "let me deliver myself from the charge of having introduced a ghost. But you will allow there is such a thing as fancy, visions, enthusiasm, dreams, call them what you will, that operate powerfully upon the brain (proportionably perhaps to its weakness);

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