From the churchyard, I look down the ravine, on fine days, towards the sea.  Mighty piles of granite soar above the fishermen’s cottages on each side; the little strip of white beach which the cliffs shut in, glows pure in the sunlight; the inland stream that trickles down the bed of the rocks, sparkles, at places, like a rivulet of silver-fire; the round white clouds, with their violet shadows and bright wavy edges, roll on majestically above me; the cries of the sea-birds, the endless, dirging murmur of the surf, and the far music of the wind among the ocean caverns, fall, now together, now separately on my ear.  Nature’s voice and Nature’s beauty—­God’s soothing and purifying angels of the soul—­speak to me most tenderly and most happily, at such times as these.

It is when the rain falls, and wind and sea arise together—­when, sheltered among the caverns in the side of the precipice, I look out upon the dreary waves and the leaping spray—­that I feel the unknown dangers which hang over my head in all the horror of their uncertainty.  Then, the threats of my deadly enemy strengthen their hold fearfully on all my senses.  I see the dim and ghastly personification of a fatality that is lying in wait for me, in the strange shapes of the mist which shrouds the sky, and moves, and whirls, and brightens, and darkens in a weird glory of its own over the heaving waters.  Then, the crash of the breakers on the reef howls upon me with a sound of judgment; and the voice of the wind, growling and battling behind me in the hollows of the cave, is, ever and ever, the same thunder-voice of doom and warning in my ear.

Does this foreboding that Mannion’s eye is always on me, that his footsteps are always secretly following mine, proceed only from the weakness of my worn-out energies?  Could others in my situation restrain themselves from fearing, as I do, that he is still incessantly watching me in secret?  It is possible.  It may be, that his terrible connection with all my sufferings of the past, makes me attach credit too easily to the destroying power which he arrogates to himself in the future.  Or it may be, that all resolution to resist him is paralysed in me, not so much by my fear of his appearance, as by my uncertainty of the time when it will take place—­not so much by his menaces themselves, as by the delay in their execution.  Still, though I can estimate fairly the value of these considerations, they exercise over me no lasting influence of tranquillity.  I remember what this man has done; and in spite of all reasoning, I believe in what he has told me he will yet do.  Madman though he may be, I have no hope of defence or escape from him in any direction, look where I will.