The Argosy — page 152: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Secret as the Grave. 139 The suspense was trying to a man so sensitive as Edward B——. “Tf he be hanged I shall think I have not exerted myself half enough,” he thought. The Lent Assizes were over ; the postal service could not be relied upon, and the news came that Coney was condemned with a string of others. With a heavy heart Edward walked to the cottage, but found there, to his glad surprise, that the report was false. James was already at the door, a free man, and apparently grateful for his minister’s intercession, although he did not say so. After this escape it was supposed that he joined some wreckers on the neighbouring coast, as he appeared seldom at home, until his death, which was brought about by that terrific storm of 1703, so long remembered in England as making many women widows, and children fatherless : and which is so well described by Edward B—— in a letter to Mr. Knatchbull, then abroad :— | “On Friday, being the 26th day of November, at midnight, so great a tempest passed over the face of heaven as no man ever heard the like. ‘The wind, which had raged more or less all the day, strengthened at the dip of the moon, and now swelled into so mighty a fury that our house swayed as it were a loose door; and we fell upon our knees in the oak parlour fearing that the end of all things was at hand. Here our alarum was made worse by a rush of bricks down the chimney, which fell with such sudden force as to smite in twain the thick fire-back of iron, whereon are the royal arms; a mis- hapen which made my mother betoken some further devision of this kingdom, ‘There was a pause in the hurricane; but, about three of the clock, the blast returned most violent ; and when I looked forth, holding by the knotted alder, the darkness was pierced by strange flashes of light; albeit I heard no thunder by reason of the dreadful roaring of the wind; and this, with the shrieks of our poorer neigh- bours, and the pitiful lowing of the cattle, which crowded at our doors, well-nigh astonied and overthrew me. ‘Thank God! the tempest broke with the day, and none of my parishioners perished, save Samuel Alcock, who was struck with so dire a sweat of fear and trembling, that no man could stay him, but kept calling out, ‘ Mercy ! mercy! day of doom,’ until he verily yielded up the ghost for fright.” Edward B—-— did not then know that another parishioner was ‘done to death” by this mighty tempest, and now lay mangled and motionless on the sands at Deal. James Coney and his comrades had noticed with cruel satisfaction the rising of the great storm. As the darkness deepened, lights flickered about the Goodwins, and a large vessel, having on board Admiral Beaumont and a crew of nearly three hundred souls, was seen hugging the shore. ‘There were men more pitiless than the fierce elements ; and these watched and waited, as the vultures watch and wait on the sheltered rock until the battle throws down their prey. On that Saturday morning they saw the Conmiclooolkks (CO)