Loudly and hoarsely roared the winter gales around the cottage. Sometimes their stormy voices rose defiantly above the boom of the breaking wave. Sometimes they clamoured fiercely against the chafing surge, whose anger they had awakened. Oftentimes they moaned and mourned among the heather, or hurled the “drifting veil” of snow before their impatient pinions deep into some dimpled valley; and you might well have deemed that evil spirits were wandering unfettered over the world, for the sweet Christmas heralds could not have bent their bright brows to earth in such a fearful hour. But still, musing and silent, sat Doya Henderson and her deformed child; and the minutes passed into hours, and both were so engrossed with dismal thoughts and forebodings that they never seemed to miss the presence of Rassmie and Hermann. But the same dark demon to whom power had been given over land and sea and human heart—that same “foul fiend” was reigning to-night as then; and again was brought to Doya’s ear the wail of bitterest mortal agony. You might almost have thought that she expected it, for when that awful cry rang out on the night air, Doya did not start or look surprised, her face just paled, and she dropped on her knees beside Tronda, whose trembling figure had sought that attitude which instinct teaches us to adopt when we turn to God in our hours of helplessness and woe. “Pray, mother; pray!” cried the girl. “Pray for father; oh! let it be for him more than all.” Earnest, though broken, were the supplications which rose from those grieving hearts; but their “woman’s heavenly part” was interrupted by the hasty entrance of Rassmie and Hermann, who rushed to their mother, with white and horror-stricken faces. “We saw it all; oh, mother, we saw it!” they panted forth. “The peat stack had been lighted, and the ship had come on the rocks, lured by the false signals. She went down at once, and then—then we saw father among the crags. Some one floated on shore; and oh, how could he? he—father! struck at the swimming man with his knife, and there was a great cry, and blood among the white surf. Mother, mother! what shall we do? Father saw us beside him there; _his_ face was awful, and oh, there may come others, for he was waiting, when we fled to you!” Tronda had stood up when her brothers came, and as soon as their hurried tale was told, she spoke calmly and with resolution: “We must all go to father. It is not for us to give him to the hand of justice, but we dare not stand still and see murder committed. Come, mother; come, boys; father must be guided by us now,” and the small decrepit figure and pinched puny face looked noble and beautiful when the spirit spoke so boldly and undauntedly.