At one moment, she would be heard discussing whether the new “circus rider,” (as she always called the preacher,) was as affecting in Timothy as the old one was pathetic in Paul, and anon, protecting dad’s horse from the invidious comparisons of some visitor, who, having heard, perhaps, that such horses as Fashion and Boston existed, thought himself qualified to doubt the old lady’s assertion that her father’s horse “Shumach” had run a mile on one particular occasion. “Don’t tell _me_,” was her never-failing reply to their doubts, “don’t tell _me_ ’bout Fashun or Bosting, or any other beating ‘Shumach’ a fair race, for the thing was unfesible: didn’t he run a mile a minute by Squire Dim’s watch, which always stopt ’zactly at twelve, and didn’t he start a minute afore, and git out, jis as the long hand war givin’ its last quiver on ketchin’ the short leg of the watch? And didn’t he beat everything in Virginny ’cept once? Dad and the folks said he’d beat then, if young Mr. Spotswood hadn’t give ‘old Swaga,’ Shumach’s rider, some of that ‘Croton water,’ and jis ’fore the race Swage or Shumach, I don’t ’stinctly ’member which, but one of them had to ‘_let down_,’ and so dad’s hoss got beat.” The son I will describe in a few words. Imbibing his parents’ contempt for letters, he was very illiterate, and as he had not enjoyed the equivalent of travel, was extremely ignorant on all matters not relating to hunting or plantation duties. He was a stout, active fellow, with a merry twinkling of the eye, indicative of humour, and partiality for practical joking. We had become very intimate, he instructing me in “forest lore,” and I, in return, giving amusing stories, or, what was as much to his liking, occasional introductions to my hunting-flask. Now that I have introduced the “Dramatis Personæ,” I will proceed with my story. By way of relaxation, and to relieve the tedium incident more or less to a student’s life, I would take my gun, walk out to old Hibbs’s, spend a day or two, and return refreshed to my books. One fine afternoon I started upon such an excursion, and as I had, upon a previous occasion missed killing a fine buck, owing to my having nothing but squirrel shot, I determined to go this time for the “antlered monarch,” by loading one barrel with fifteen “blue whistlers,” reserving the other for small game. At the near end of the plantation was a fine spring, and adjacent, a small cave, the entrance artfully or naturally concealed, save to one acquainted with its locality. The cave was nothing but one of those subterranean washes so common in the west and south, and called “sink-holes.”