THE PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE, A _NOVEL_, IN FOUR VOLUMES. BY MISS JANE PORTER, AUTHOR OF THADDEUS OF WARSAW, SIDNEY'S APHORISMS, AND THE SCOTTISH CHIEFS. I will confess the ambitious projects which I once had, are dead within me. After having seen the parts which fools play upon the great stage; a few books, and a few friends, are what I shall seek to finish my days with. TWEDDELL. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1817. THE PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE. CHAP. I. It was late one fine evening in September, when a boat, borne along by a single sail, passed over the narrow sea which divides Lindisfarne from the mainland, and moored itself within the small bay of the island. The moon was beginning to rise; and by her silvering outline, already distinguished the venerable relics of Saint Cuthbert's monastery from the shadows of twilight. Two persons wrapped in large cloaks, and followed by one who seemed a servant, rose from the boat; and giving a piece of gold to their solitary navigator, stepped on shore. The elder of the two made the sign of the cross upon his breast, and with his eyes bent to the ground, walked slowly forward. The younger performed the same act of devotion, though in a less fixed manner, and shivering as he looked up to the flying clouds, followed his companion. Having proceeded over sand and shingle without discerning any thing like an inhabited dwelling, he began to doubt the boatman's information respecting the situation of their purposed lodgings; and, looking around for some other intelligence, perceived a group of fishermen on a shelve of the rock.--By the assistance of his servant, he scrambled up the acclivity, and enquired the way to the Reverend Richard Athelstone's.--One of the men, raising himself from the heap of gathered nets they had been drying on the rocks, pointed along the top of the cliff, and told him to keep on, west of the abbey, when he would soon see the church, and the Pastor's house beside it.