He had hardly drawn himself in as closely as
possible, when the lightning revealed to him that the opposite corner
of the nook was tenanted also.
"A sharp rain, this," said the other occupant, who simultaneously
beheld Philip.
The voice sounded to the young man's ears a note which almost made him
sober again. It was certainly the voice of Adam Covert. He made some
commonplace reply, and waited for another flash of lightning to show
him the stranger's face. It came, and he saw that his companion was
indeed his guardian.
Philip Marsh had drank deeply--(let us plead all that may be possible
to you, stern moralist.) Upon his mind came swarming, and he could not
drive them away, thoughts of all those insults his sister had told him
of, and the bitter words Covert had spoken to her; he reflected, too,
on the injuries Esther as well as himself had receiv'd, and were still
likely to receive, at the hands of that bold, bad man; how mean,
selfish, and unprincipled was his character--what base and cruel
advantages he had taken of many poor people, entangled in his power,
and of how much wrong and suffering he had been the author, and might
be again through future years. The very turmoil of the elements, the
harsh roll of the thunder, the vindictive beating of the rain, and the
fierce glare of the wild fluid that seem'd to riot in the ferocity of
the storm around him, kindled a strange sympathetic fury in the young
man's mind. Heaven itself (so deranged were his imaginations) appear'd
to have provided a fitting scene and time for a deed of retribution,
which to his disorder'd passion half wore the semblance of a divine
justice.
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