… “Blue Innistone rose to sight,
And Caracthura’s mossy tow’rs appear’d.”
“Tura’s bay receiv’d our ships.”
Here the meditations of our heroine were broken off by the sudden entrance of her father accompanied by Fitz-Ullin. The Euphrasia was by this time safely anchored in Leith roads.
Lord L? embraced his child; both were some moments silent; Julia’s weariness of heart found an inexpressible solace in a passion of tears, shed on the bosom of a kind parent. She tried to persuade herself that they were all tears of joy.
Lord L? had received Julia’s letter. Its[292] contents were not easily reconciled with those of the three notes left on her table at Lodore; but Lord L? determined to reserve the expression of any feeling of doubt he might yet entertain, for the subject of a strictly private interview; and, never to allow the world, but particularly Fitz-Ullin, to suppose that he could, for a moment, suspect his daughter of having quitted her home willingly. “I have indeed spent,” said Lord L?, in answer to a remark of Julia’s on his looking fatigued, “an anxious night and a truly terrible morning. I arrived in Leith just in time to witness the distress of the Euphrasia, on board of which, by your letter, I knew you to be. I was among those, Julia, who crowded the beach during the many hours of awful suspense, while the vessel was, each moment, expected to drive on the rocks! but now,” he added, “that things have ended so happily, a little rest will remedy all that. And[293] your preserver, my child, how shall I sufficiently thank him!” Fitz-Ullin, who, from delicacy, had left the cabin for a short time, had just returned, and now stood a little apart. Lord L?, as he spoke, looked from him to Julia, and from Julia to him, as though he would have added, “shall I reward him with the gift of the precious treasure he has preserved?”
Fitz-Ullin seemed to comprehend the look, for his eyes sought the ground, and he coloured slightly. Julia too blushed. Fitz-Ullin however continued silent. Lord L? paused a scarcely perceptible moment, then, assuming an air of dignity, which almost amounted to haughtiness, asked Julia if she felt sufficiently recovered to go on shore immediately? “We shall take an early opportunity,” he added, turning to our hero, “of expressing, at more length, our grateful acknowledgments to Lord Fitz-Ullin.” Both gentlemen endeavoured to[294] conceal their feelings by bowing very profoundly, and Julia, promising to get ready for her departure in a few moments, joined Lady Oswald in the inner cabin. Lord L? could not have been so unreasonable as to have expected that, if Fitz-Ullin did intend to propose for his daughter, he was to do so in such a moment of hurry as the present; but, there had been an undefinable something in the look and manner of our hero, which conveyed to the haughty Earl a sense, that the honour of his alliance had been tacitly declined; and, still worse, he felt an inward conviction that his secret wishes, in a moment of emotion, of which he was now ashamed, had been in some degree understood.
While the ladies’ preparations were being made, Henry came on board. After setting out for Plymouth, he had seen, by a paper he had taken up at an inn, that the Euphrasia had sailed for Leith, and he had in consequence[295] turned back to join her there. What must have been his astonishment, just as he set foot on the deck, to behold rise to view, coming up from the cabin, his cousin Julia, handed up by Fitz-Ullin! He received a glance from Lord L? which was not at all calculated to set him at his ease. His lordship, however, gave at this time, no other expression to his feelings. Henry soon became reassured; paid his compliments to Lady Oswald; and finally asked and obtained permission of our hero, to attend the ladies in landing.
Lord L?, taking Fitz-Ullin by the arm, walked apart with him a few paces, then said: “After this day, your lordship will oblige me, by not permitting Mr. St. Aubin to land again while we are in Edinburgh; to him I must ascribe this daring attempt to tear my daughter from her home, and compel her to form a union as repugnant to her own feelings, as ineligible in my eyes.” Here a pause took place; but,[296] Fitz-Ullin, though he listened with polite attention, did not reply. “As, however, my daughter does not return his attachment, I can have no scruple on the score of parental feeling, in preventing all intercourse in future.” When Lord L? concluded, our hero bowed his assent. Fitz-Ullin attended the party in his own barge to the shore, but excused himself from landing, pleading the necessity of returning immediately to his ship.
On arriving on board, he gave orders to have the pilots detained, having determined to give them into the hands of the Port Admiral, to suffer whatever punishment might be adjudged them, for having undertaken a service for which they were quite unfit. The order however was too late, the pilots had already disappeared. They had managed to get away unnoticed; it was supposed in the shore-boat that brought Lord L? on board.