The woman looked down for a moment; but then gazed up in his face with a somewhat rueful expression of countenance, and a shake of the head, answering, “She was a Protestant, you know.”

The stranger looked surprised, and asked, “Did she always continue a Protestant, my good woman?  I should have thought love could have worked more wonderful conversions than that.”

“Ah! she died as she lived, poor thing,” replied the woman, “and with nobody with her either, but I and one other; for the Colonel was away, poor man, levying troops for the king—­that is, for King James, sir; for your honour looks as if you were on the other side.”

The stranger was silent and looked abstracted; but at length he answered, somewhat listlessly, “Really, my good woman, one does not know what side to be of.  It is raining very hard to-night, unless those are the boughs of the trees tapping against your window.”

“Those are the large drops of rain,” replied the woman, “dashed against the glass by the south-west wind.  It will be an awful night; and I think of the ship.”

“I will let you hear of the boy,” rejoined the stranger in an indifferent tone, “as soon as I hear of him myself;” and taking up his hat from the table, he seemed about to depart, when a peculiar expression upon the woman’s countenance made him pause, and, at the same time, brought to his mind that he had not even asked her name.

“I thought your honour had forgotten,” she replied, when he asked her the question at length.  “They call me Betty Harper; but Mrs. Harper will find me in this place, if you put that upon your letter:  and now that we are asking such sort of questions, your honour wouldn’t be offended, surely, if I were to ask you your name too?”

“Certainly not, my good lady,” he replied; “I am called Harry Sherbrooke, Esquire, very much at your service.—­Heavens, how it blows and rains!”

“Perhaps it is nothing but a wind-shower” replied the woman; “if your honour would like to wait until it has ridden by.”

“Why, I shall get drenched most assuredly if I go,” he answered, “and that before I reach the inn; but I will look out and see, my good lady.”

He accordingly proceeded into the little passage, and opened the door, followed by his companion.  They were instantly saluted, however, by a blast of wind that almost knocked the strong man himself down, and made the woman reel against the wall of the passage.

Everything beyond—­though the cottage, situated upon a height, looked down the slope of the hill, over the cliffs, to the open sea—­was as dark as the cloud which fell upon Egypt:  a darkness that could be felt! and not the slightest vestige of star or moon, or lingering ray of sunshine, marked to the eye the distinction between heaven, earth, and sea.

Sherbrooke drew back, as the wind cut him, and the rain dashed in his face; but at that very moment something like a faint flash was seen, apparently at a great distance, and gleaming through the heavy rain.  The woman instantly caught her companion’s wrist tight in her grasp, exclaiming, “Hark!”—­and in a few seconds after, in a momentary lull of the wind, was heard the low booming roar of a distant cannon.