night is indelible. The wind gradually rose into an hurricane; the
largest branches were torn from the trees, and whirled aloft into
the air; others were uprooted and laid prostrate on the ground.
The barn was a spacious edifice, consisting wholly of wood, and
filled with a plenteous harvest. Thus supplied with fuel, and
fanned by the wind, the fire raged with incredible fury; meanwhile
clouds rolled above, whose blackness was rendered more conspicuous
by reflection from the flames; the vast volumes of smoke were
dissipated in a moment by the storm, while glowing fragments and
cinders were borne to an immense hight, and tossed everywhere in
wild confusion. Ever and anon the sable canopy that hung around us
was streaked with lightning, and the peals, by which it was
accompanied, were deafning, and with scarcely any intermission.

It was, doubtless, absurd to imagine any connexion between
this portentous scene and the purpose that I had meditated, yet a
belief of this connexion, though wavering and obscure, lurked in my
mind; something more than a coincidence merely casual, appeared to
have subsisted between my situation, at my father's bed side, and
the flash that darted through the window, and diverted me from my
design. It palsied my courage, and strengthened my conviction,
that my scheme was criminal.

After some time had elapsed, and tranquility was, in some
degree, restored in the family, my father reverted to the
circumstances in which I had been discovered on the first alarm of
this event. The truth was impossible to be told. I felt the
utmost reluctance to be guilty of a falsehood, but by falsehood
only could I elude detection. That my guilt was the offspring of
a fatal necessity, that the injustice of others gave it birth and