The Vandal’s foot hath pressed our sod,
His heel hath crushed our sacred shrines;
And, bowing ‘neath the chastening rod,
We lift our hearts and hands to God,
And cry: ”Oh! save our Land of Pines!”
[CHAPTER XLIV.]
However pleasant may be the scenes to which we are going, we cannot repress a feeling of sadness as we leave those with which we have been long associated, and which have become, as it were, part of our life.
As the train bearing us from our home moved off from the shed, I went out to the rear platform, and stood looking at each familiar place and object as they passed, with a fond farewell upon my lips, and a desire to stamp all so indelibly upon my memory that in years to come I might remember exactly how everything appeared. As I stood with my face down the track I could not see an object till it passed, and then I gazed at it as it receded, till other objects flashing by claimed my attention. Now the bridge overhead, where I had so often stood to throw bits of coal and wood at the engines passing underneath, its arch and railing almost hidden in the curling volumes of smoke our engine has left behind; now the machine shops, where as a boy I had gathered the spiral iron shavings as great wonders of art, still clinking noisily above the rattle of the train, and blinking their red eyes from every forge; now engine yards, with old rusty boilers cast aside, and broken smoke stacks lying on the ground; here a pond where I have fished, its yellow surface darkened with cinders and wrinkled with the breath of our speed; there the river where I have bathed, hidden by the trees itself, but its course revealed by some naked mast and gliding sails; now we rattle through the coal and lumber yards, almost brushing against great piles of timber heaped along the track, and almost grazing dusty carts, with coal-begrimed drivers in red shirts, and heavy plodding horses with brass-studded harness, nodding their heads at every step, as if to say they were used to the cars and could not be prevailed upon to shy; now flash by streets that open, for a second, elm-bordered vistas ‘way up into the city, and close them as they whirl past; now we overtake and pass some one who knows me, walking along a very narrow sidewalk, and who bows and says something I cannot understand, and which I can only reply to by a great many shakes of the head; now we rattle by a little house with a dingy porch, and a goat with two kids browsing in front, where a schoolmate of mine used to live and invite me, and mother would not let me go; and now we roar out through the suburbs, where greasy looking men are smoking short pipes in rickety doorways, and red-armed women, with tumbled-down hair, are ever carrying water in painted buckets to the crazy shanties, and never seeming to use it, and where flocks of dirty children run out to wave and scream at the train; on till the last tenement is passed, and in the hazy distance I can only recognize the steeples of the different churches. Even these at last fade into the sky, and still, in my reverie, I stand there watching the black rails gliding like two long serpents from under the train, and the cross-ties ever flitting like steps to an interminable ladder down the track.
As I had several matters of business to attend to in New York, I determined to take steamer from that point to Havana, instead of from Charleston, as we first thought of doing.
The evening after our arrival in the metropolis being bright and sunny, I ordered an open carriage, and Carlotta and I, with little Johnnie, drove out to the Park. Ordering our coachman to let the horses go slowly, we gave ourselves up to the enjoyment of the beautiful scene. Pausing at each object of interest—here a marble statue, there a bronze, getting out at the museum, that Johnnie might see the animals, stopping on the edge of the lake, that he might feed the swans—time passed swiftly, and the sun was nearly down as we found ourselves over the terrace, the dress parade ground for the equipages of the Park. The press of vehicles here forced us to stop for a moment, and at the same instant a most superb turnout caught our attention. A pair of jet black horses, whose champing mouths almost bit their foam-flecked breasts, covered with harness that dazzled the eye with its gleaming plate, a glittering gold-mounted chariot, and a coachman and lackey in green and gold liveries! There were only two occupants—a handsome, middle-aged man, and a lady of striking yet haggard beauty. Clustering brown curls fell around her shoulders, and her hazel eyes were very bright, but her wan cheek was rouged, and the smile she wore was plainly forced and meaningless. All this we saw in a moment, and then we looked in each other’s faces, and exclaimed in one breath: