“Overcome! My nerves are shattered to atoms, I tell you! Ur-r-r-r-r! It has given me the tertian ague, and the St. Vitus’ dance! both together! Ur-r-r-r-r!”
“Now who would have supposed you to be a—of such a nervous temperament! Come, let me assist you to mount, and then away.”
“What! And at the end of the next hundred yards, ride headlong over a precipice of fifteen hundred feet, and before night find sepulchre in the maws of fifty turkey-buzzards! I tell you there is neither a glorious death, an honorable burial nor an immortal fame to be found in such a fate! Heavens and earth, no! For instance—‘Whatever became of that poor devil, Fairfax?’ asks one. ‘Oh, one day, crossing the mountains in a fog, with his head in a mist, he had the awkwardness to pitch himself headforemost down the Devil’s Ladder, in the Alleghanies,’ answers t’other. ‘Poor creature! He was always a miserable—but where was he buried?’ ‘He wa’n’t buried—the crows eat him up,’ etc., etc., etc.! Oh! I know what my posthumous fame would be in such a case. Quite different from that of the future Major-General Francis Fairfax, who, fifty years hence, at a good old age, shall die in his downy bed, with the archbishop praying by him, and be buried with the highest honors of war, and have a national monument raised to his fame, emblazoning his immortal services to his grateful country, in receiving her honors and emoluments for more that half a century! Can’t give up that glorious future for the sake of dashing myself to pieces this afternoon, Clifton. No!” said the young man, folding his arms, and striking an attitude a-la-Napoleon, “I have a destiny to fulfill, and shall not stir from this spot until the mist rises or falls.”
“Mr. Fairfax! It is now drawing late in the afternoon. We shall have a storm before night; and a storm on the mountains, let me tell you, is a much more delightful thing to read about in Childe Harold, while stretched at your ease upon the settee in your shady piazza, than to take in propria personæ on the Alleghanies,” said Captain Clifton, quietly.
“Only warrant me from bringing up suddenly to the jumping-off place before I know it—and I’ll make an attempt! Yea! let him only insure my body unharmed by fire or water, and I’ll valiantly follow my leader through flood and flame!” replied Frank, recovering himself with a few more shudders, and preparing to mount.
“We have left the right road about two miles behind,” said Captain Clifton, turning his horse’s head and leading the way.
The fog below was condensing very fast. From the North-Western horizon black clouds were rising behind masses of foaming white vapor. The air was still and oppressive, and from all around came a faint, low moaning sound, as if nature cowered and trembled before the coming of the terrible “storm king.” The fog was now rolling down and gathering into clouds below them—revealing the majestic features of the landscape, mountains, vales and forests, rocks, glens and waterfalls, in wild and magnificent confusion—all wearing now a savage and gloomy aspect under the shadow of the coming storm. Captain Clifton’s eye had been constantly on the alert in hope of discovering some mountain cabin, which might shelter them from the fury of the tempest, but as yet his search was unsuccessful—no human dwelling even of the humblest description was to be seen. At length the attention of the travellers was attracted by the faint tingling of a bell—then by the bleating of sheep—and then from the deep clouded glen at their right, sprung up into their path a bell-wether followed by two—five—ten—a whole flock of sheep; and driven by a girl on a pony; a little coarse, sun-burned girl, in a boy’s coarse straw hat and a homespun gown, riding on a little rough-coated, wiry, mountain pony.
“A shepherdess, by all that is romantic,” exclaimed Fairfax, vaulting aside to let the sheep pass. Then springing to the side of the rough-coated pony, he doffed his hat to the rider and said—
“My good girl—for the love of Providence, will you tell us where we can find shelter from the storm?”
The child raised her fine eyes to the stranger’s face with the look of a startled fawn—and dropped them again instantly. Fairfax repeated his question. The child stole another furtive glance at the fine gentleman in the very fine uniform, and then at her own coarse raiment, and blushed deeply. But before Fairfax could reiterate his request, she said, quietly—