One only vestige of his fate appeared. A large sable feather had been
detached from his hat, and the rippling waves of the rising tide wafted
it to Caleb's feet. The old man took it up, dried it, and placed it in
his bosom.
The inhabitants of Wolf's Hope were now alarmed, and crowded to the
place, some on shore, and some in boats, but their search availed
nothing. The tenacious depths of the quicksand, as is usual in such
cases, retained its prey.
Our tale draws to a conclusion. The Marquis of A----, alarmed at the
frightful reports that were current, and anxious for his kinsman's
safety, arrived on the subsequent day to mourn his loss; and, after
renewing in vain a search for the body, returned, to forget what had
happened amid the bustle of politics and state affairs.
Not so Caleb Balderstone. If wordly profit could have consoled the old
man, his age was better provided for than his earlier years had ever
been; but life had lost to him its salt and its savour. His whole course
of ideas, his feelings, whether of pride or of apprehension, of pleasure
or of pain, had all arisen from its close connexion with the family
which was now extinguished.
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