Fair Anna feels that all her previous reputation is at stake, and flies like a deer. She passes around the first mile like a flash of white light; but the Arabian is beside her. For a quarter of a mile thereafter they run neck and neck—the rider of fair Anna lashes and spurs desperately.
They come up to the quarter-stretch in the last mile at supernatural speed:—the spectators rise on their toes and shout:—two shadows pass them like the shadows of darting hawks:—the mare barely saves her distance and the Arabian has triumphed.
If we could not describe the excitement after the second heat, what possibility is there that we could convey an idea of the raging and surging pandemonium which the crowd now came to resemble? Furious cries—shouts—curses—applause—laughter—and the rattle of coin leaving unwilling hands are some of the sounds. But here we must give up:—as no mere pen can describe the raging of a great mass of water lashed by an angry wind into foam and whistling spray and muttering waves, which rise and fall and crash incessantly, so we cannot trace the outline of the wildly excited crowd.
[Afterwards come contests with the quarter-staff, a wrestling match, running matches, a contest of singing among “a dozen blushing maidens,” and of fiddling among twenty bold musicians: and the day is wound up with a great banquet.]
FOOTNOTE:
[29] By permission of D. Appleton and Co., New York.
ZEBULON BAIRD VANCE.
1830=1894.
Zebulon Baird Vance was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina, and was educated at Washington College, Tennessee, and at the University of North Carolina. He studied law and began its practice in Asheville. He was soon elected to the State Legislature and to Congress; and from 1854 to his death was continuously in public life except just after the war. His wit and eloquence made him a great favorite both on the stump and in Congress, and the influence he wielded in his state was unbounded. He was opposed to secession, but joined his state in her decision and became colonel of the 26th North Carolina Regiment, one of the best of the army.