question? Glance of eye, thought of man, wing of angel, which of these
had speed enough to sweep between the question and the answer, and divide
the one from the other? Light does not tread upon the steps of light
more indivisibly, than did our all-conquering arrival upon the escaping
efforts of the gig. _That_ must the young man have felt too plainly. His
back was now turned to us; not by sight could he any longer communicate
with the peril; but by the dreadful rattle of our harness, too truly had
his ear been instructed,—that all was finished as regarded any further
effort of _his_. Already in resignation he had rested from his struggle;
and perhaps in his heart he was whispering, “Father, which art above,
do thou finish in heaven what I on earth have attempted.” We ran past
them faster than ever mill-race in our inexorable flight. O, raving of
hurricanes that must have sounded in their young ears at the moment of
our transit! Either with the swingle-bar, or with the haunch of our near
leader, we had struck the off-wheel of the little gig, which stood rather
obliquely and not quite so far advanced as to be accurately parallel
with the near wheel. The blow, from the fury of our passage, resounded
terrifically. I rose in horror, to look upon the ruins we might have
caused. From my elevated station I looked down, and looked back upon the
scene, which in a moment told its tale, and wrote all its records on my
heart forever.
The horse was planted immovably, with his forefeet upon the paved crest
of the central road. He of the whole party was alone untouched by the
passion of death. The little cany carriage,—partly perhaps from the
dreadful torsion of the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the
thundering blow we had given to it,—as if it sympathized with human
horror, was all alive with tremblings and shiverings. The young man
sat like a rock. He stirred not at all. But _his_ was the steadiness
of agitation frozen into rest by horror. As yet he dared not to look
round; for he knew that if anything remained to do, by him it could no
longer be done. And as yet he knew not for certain if their safety were
accomplished. But the lady—
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