With ringing crack the leathern whip, that else had idly hung, Kept time for many a rapid mile to English songs he sung; And yet, despite his smile, he seemed a lonely man to be, With not one soul to claim him kin on this side of the sea.
But after I had known him long, one mellow evening-time He told me of his English Rose, who withered in her prime; And how, within the churchyard green, he laid her down to rest With her sweet babe, a blighted bud, upon her frozen breast.
“I could not stay,” he said, “where she had left me all alone! The very hedge-rose that she loved, I could not look upon. I could not hear the mavis sing, or see the long grass wave, And every little daisy-bank seemed but my darling’s grave.
“Yet somehow—why, I cannot tell—but when I wandered here, I seemed to bring her with me too, that once had been so dear. I love these mountain summits, where the world is in the sky, For she is in it too,—my love!—and so I bring her nigh.”
Next week I rode with Jem again. The coach was full, that day, And there were little children there, that pleased us with their play. A sweet-faced mother brought her pair of rosy, bright-eyed girls, And boy like one I left at home, with silken yellow curls.
We took fresh horses at Girard’s, and as he led them out— A vicious pair they seemed to me—I heard the hostler shout, “You always want good horses, Jem! Now you shall have your way. Try these new beauties, for we sold your old team yesterday.”
O’er clean-cut limb and sloping flank, arched neck and tossing head, I marked Jem run his practised eye, though not a word he said; Yet, as he clambered to his seat, and took the reins once more, I saw a look upon his face it had not worn before.
The hostler open flung the gates. “Now, Tempest, show your pace,” He cried, and with a careless hand he struck the leader’s face. The horse, beneath the sportive blow, reared as if poison-stung; And, with his panic-stricken mates, to a mad gallop sprung.
We thundered through the gate, and out upon the stony road; From side to side the great coach lurched, with all its priceless load: Some cried aloud for help, and some, with terror-frozen tongue, Clung, bruised and faint in every limb, the weaker to the strong.
And men who oft had looked on death, unblanched, by flood or field, When every nerve to do and dare by agony was steeled, Now moaned aloud, or gnashed their teeth in helpless rage, To die, at whim of maddened brutes, like vermin in a cage!