Around the folly, on the night which followed the departure of the orphans of Trevethlan from the home of their fathers, was pacing a stalwart man of weather-beaten aspect, with an impatient and irregular gait. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and all the south and west quarters of the sky were covered with heavy masses of cloud, from behind which, at intervals, came the low mutterings of distant thunder. Flashes of lightning followed one another in quick succession, becoming more and more brilliant as the shades of evening grew deeper. They broke from various quarters of the horizon, but particularly from the point of sunset. The light seemed to flit or be reflected all round the sky. Sometimes it was a lambent flame of blue, sometimes a flush of faint rose colour; sometimes the dark clouds were displayed in bold relief against a bright sheet of yellow or white. So far the sea was still calm, and the air close and heavy. But at length there came a motion in the hot atmosphere. The surface of the water was crisped. A sigh wailed along it, as if the spirit of the tempest mourned over his mission; and then the storm, whose advent had been foreseen by Randolph and Helen, during their last visit to Merlin's Cave, advanced rapidly up the sky. And a tempest scarcely less fierce raged in the breast of Gabriel Denis, as he paced hurriedly within those old ramparts. He was expecting an assembly almost as tumultuous as that of the warriors whose battle shouts once resounded there, and he was resolved that it should not disperse in the same innocuous manner as former meetings of the same character. One by one, and two by two, as the darkness deepened, his promised adherents arrived, and the ancient camp became filled with an excited mob, anxious for mischief, ignorant what to do. Well might Randolph caution Edward Owen that in joining such musters as these he might easily be carried much further than he intended to go. A fretting population always contains inflammable materials, and it is far less difficult to kindle than to extinguish its fury. The consciousness of this fact frequently deters mob-leaders from urging their followers into a course where there will be no subsequent control. And crimes of this nature are among the greatest that can be committed, especially in a free state. An idea prevails that there is a sort of heroism in defying public authority, no matter how trivial the occasion, nor how impotent the assailant. Defeated and punished, the criminal is not seldom regarded as a martyr. He is considered the victim of his own conscientiousness. Antecedent cases of successful sedition are quoted to justify subsequent failures. But all this is false and mischievous. There is never heroism in fool-hardiness: the so-styled martyr may witness to no truth: the conscientiousness may be of the kind which calls property a theft. And former successes are rather warnings than examples. Precedent cannot avail against the powers that be.