Chapter V (4)

It was a sharp race, and a warm one. After running a mile or more, there was a small stream to be crossed; and with a few well-balanced steps on a half-decayed log that lay at the edge of the water, I reached the opposite bank just as my pursuer stepped on at the other end. Hearing a strange kind of shock, I turned and saw the big six-footed animal astride the log, twisting and writhing about in great agony. He had slipped and fallen in such a manner as to pain him almost beyond endurance. I stood on the bank and laughed at him; and--shall I confess it?--I tried half a dozen more caps at the fellow, with a most savage deliberateness; to all which he paid not the slightest attention; but as his strength came gradually back, I took to my heels again, and fortunately reached the highway....

The last ten miles of our ride that night were passed over in a very headlong manner: we stopped only once, as we heard the cry of some hounds on the south side, and then on again, keeping our horses just within their speed, till at the worst place on the road, we gave up the reins and let them go. In less than two hours from Picolata, we snuffed the salt air again; and reaching the open country, walked our horses leisurely into St. Augustine.

As we entered the city my companion left me; and as I drew rein on the square, I noticed that the schooner was still at the dock, and all about the city was quiet and undisturbed. The storm had gone by, its skirts hanging on the eastern horizon, and forming a back-ground to the light of the light-house, while the city and bay were bright in the starlight; and if stars shine any brighter in the small hours, they were doing their best then. All looked pleasant and quite at home, even to the sentry at the corner; and there was nothing, you would say, to make one sad; but as I turned the corner I drew a breath of such yawning profundity that the old dog at the Florida House started up and growled impromptu. That dog had held a stout nigger all night in the yard, not long before; but fortunately he knew me, and after smelling, to make sure that all was right, he followed me into an out-house, when I rolled Bob out of a cradle, and giving a general order in a low voice for a warm bath in the morning, found my quarters and went to bed.

At sunrise the next morning I was half awake, grasping at the skirts of a pleasant dream, when Bob came in, blew about the room for awhile, and cried out 'Massa, did you order um wom bath?' 'No; clear out! Eh? warm bath? Yes; warm bath, to be sure.' And Bob went out, and came in directly with two wenches and a warm bath. 'How's the wind Bob?' 'De wind?' 'Yes; where's the wind' 'Dun know, Sah.' 'Well, go out in the balcony and see where it comes from.' Bob shouted through the open window, 'De wind come from de Souf.'

I made but one spring, and the blacks vanished. Going below, I found the house in commotion. The schooner was to sail at nine o'clock, and the signal would be the report of a two-pounder which the captain carried on his quarter-deck. At eight o'clock I had been all over town from the fort to the powder house; looked in at the church, where were some fifteen or twenty kneeling, silent and devotional; and was seated at breakfast, when we heard the captain's gun, an hour before the time. 'My God!' said I, 'I can't go without seeing Mrs. J---- and kind Mrs. G----; and then there's the pretty Di. Vernon!' (I had bade them good-by a dozen times.) I rushed into the street, and seeing half-a-dozen ladies not far off, gave them a touch-and-go shake; rushed up a wrong street, then back again, and finally came out on the square and saw the little schooner's sails bellied out full; passengers waving their handkerchiefs, and the people all around crying out to me to hurry, or I should lose my chance. But I _didn't_ hurry. The idea of hurry, after we had waited six weeks! That captain too, had he been asleep all this time, and just awaked? No; I did not hurry, but walked leisurely across the square, looking over my shoulder occasionally to see if ---- was any where in sight, for she had promised to be at the dock; and passing over the long wharf in the same stubborn way, I stepped on board the schooner with a stiffer upper lip than I ever remember to have had in that climate. The moment that my feet touched the deck, the ropes slipped and away flew the schooner; but in all this 'heat, haste and hunger,' from a half-swallowed breakfast, and consignments of pacquets and kind wishes that were left behind, the sentiment of my last look was burnt to a cinder.

THOUGHTS FROM BULWER.

BY MRS. M. T. W. CHANDLER.

I.

It cannot be that earth was given for our abiding place,
Or that for nought we're darkly doomed the storms of life to face;
It cannot be our being's cast from 'neath the ocean wave
Of vast Eternity, to sink _again_ within its grave.
Else tell me why the aspiring thoughts, the glorious hopes of man,
Which spring up from his 'heart of hearts,' brook not earth's narrow span;
Oh! tell me why unsatisfied forever here they roam,
And seem to claim in higher spheres a refuge and a home.

II.

Why is it that the rainbow and the tints of evening clouds
Dispel the mists in which the world our spirits still enshrouds?
The chord they strike!--oh, tell me not that it can be of earth--
The golden heart-string that they touch is _not_ of mortal birth:
The very buds and blossoms, and the balmy summer air,
Awake within us shadows vague of things more bright and fair;
'Tis almost like _remembrance_--oh! would that I could tell
The meaning of that hidden charm my spirit knows so well!

III.

A simple tone can rouse it; a smile, or even a sigh
Can make the ghost-like shadows flit before my dreaming eye;
'Tis one of life's deep mysteries; in vain we seek to trace
The hidden spell's dark origin that chains our feeble race:
But, oh! may we not fancy, may we not sweetly think,
'Tis between us and another world a dim mysterious link?
May we not hope that secret chord from God to man was given,
To shadow forth within his soul pure images of heaven?

IV.

The very stars which pierce the veil far o'er this world of sin,
And seem to give faint visions of a paradise within,
In all their hallowed loveliness, their vague and mystic lore,
Oh! do they not seem beckoning to a purer, holier shore?
And tell me why the well-loved eyes which here upon us beam
Gleam radiantly o'er our path, then vanish like a dream;
My MOTHER! oh! my Mother! shall they find belief in me,
Who tell me there's no happy land where I shall meet with thee?