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the Domine, back here, to set me right. I must ride back, I don't know how far-it seemed three miles-and get the directions to Mr. C.'s.

"Keep the straight road," is the answer I received.

After riding over a country undulating with low, sweeping hills, and passing some new plantations, I finally lost sight of both new and old, and night-fall came upon me in the woods.

It soon grew dark, and in vain I looked to the heavens. for moonlight or starlight.

The deep forest about me was draped in sombre moss, and the sky overhead was draped in sombre clouds. There was no doubt which road to take now. I gave the reins to my horse and trusted to him to keep a road.

Riding so for a long, long while, describing turns and angles in the road, in the dark, and doubting whether I was on the right road or not--going to or from my point of destination—having seen no light or signs of a plantation near, I began to think of being lost in the woods—of spending a night among the wolves.

I never disliked to entertain a thought so bad in my life; it haunted me like a hungry wolf, as I rode along in these mournful, gloomy woods.

But suddenly I saw a light, afar off, glimmering through the trees.

"How far that little candle throws its beams!"

How far I could not tell, or whether I was riding nearer to it every moment.

When, as suddenly I saw it, it disappeared. It was no time for being poetical, but it was a time when one feels the meaning and deep sentiment of poetry. I question whether SCOTT ever felt the full force and truth of the following lines of his, as I did, as they occurred to me here:

E

"Oft he looks back, while, streaming far,
His cottage window seems a star,-.
Loses its feeble gleam,—and then

Turns patient to the blast again."

I was left alone and could only trust now to the instinct of my horse to keep the road.

Again I caught the light; and it occurred to me rather than lose it, I had better strike a straight line to it. But that would be dangerous. To keep the road was my dernier resort.

Thus I rode, losing and catching that light, glimmering through the trees, like the gleamings of hope to cheer me on my lone and dreary way, till it finally disappeared, and I could only urge on my horse in the dark, who was tired, but not as much as his rider.

But I could now perceive, by peering into the darkness, that I was no longer in the woods; an opening seemed to be each side of me, and there also appeared to be the dark form of a fence on either hand. This was a relief though the light was gone. I spurred on my horse. But the plantation might be one of those with fences three or four miles long; and what if it was an old deserted one! This left me deserted of even a cheering thought.

But while busied with these lonely thoughts along my lonely way, my horse suddenly turned off from the road. Trusting to the faithful animal, I gave him the reins, and he was soon walking around among cattle lying in a barnyard, I supposed.

The observing creature had noticed an opening in the fence, and had left the road and gone through it.

I alighted-felt with my cane and found that we were near a fence-palings, it must be, around a house. I hitched my horse to them, and walked along by them, till I came to a corner, described a right angle, and continu

ing on I found a gate. Felt for a latch, but it was like MUGGINS' feeling for the key-hole-Mrs. MUGGINS must have pulled it inside. Reaching over I found the latch.

Walking into the yard I observed a light shining out from the crevices in the door of a house. I walked up the three or four steps that usually lead to a planter's porchwent to the door and rapped.

CHAPTER VI.

"Yet various my romantic theme
Flits winds and shifts-a morning dream;
Through Southern snowy meads it goes,
Where Southern wealth around me flows."

SCOTT.

The door was opened by a man of aldermanic dimensions, large gray eyes, and cheeks that needed no swelling whiskers to make them full. The silvery honors had fallen from his head, and their place had been supplied by a thatching made from the auburn locks of youth.

Sitting in one corner of the room, I saw R., the teacher, from New York, that I had met on the "Home," coming up the Yazoo.

This was the plantation of his relative-the gentleman I have described, and to whom he now introduced me.

Mr. D., that was his name, is sixty years of age. He is a native of the Empire State, which he left forty years ago, and came South as a teacher.

He had taught school here in his own neighborhood, where he married a Southern lady of considerable fortune, to which he has added until he has come into possession of the plantation he now owns. During this time he has become a true Southron. His wife dying, some few years ago, left him with a competency for life, enjoying which he will here, though not as a widower, perhaps,

"Husband out life's taper to its close."

But my first inquiry was, whether I could find lodging for the night, and my second was, like SANCHO's, "Could my 'Dapple' have shelter and provender?" "

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To a way-worn traveler, and most especially to a benighted one, there is something that cheers him as he hears a welcome response to his inquiry whether he can find food and shelter for the night; but when it is given in that generous and hospitable manner which says,

:

"Guidance and rest and food and fire,

No stranger may in vain require;"

one feels that he is thrice and four times welcomed. I need scarcely add that beneath a Southern planter's roof you find this welcome.

There was one other person in the room, of a clever and somewhat intelligent look, whom I soon found to be the overseer. Mr. D. being a widower, and living alone, he had probably associated him as one of the family more than he otherwise would have done. For I saw that he was considered as one of the family.

I supposed I had been out half the night in the woods; I had not quite, yet, though it was deep in the evening, they had not been to supper. They were having a late one. A negro servant girl had just placed it on the table and announced that it was ready as I came in.

I was invited, after a few moments' conversation, to sit down to table with them. The fare was simple-the corn dodger, little wheat biscuit, the size of a door-knob, some butter, hominy and coffee. Of this, after Mr. D. had asked a blessing, I partook with a good appetite.

Our host appeared to be a man of humor, and rallied R., his relative, and myself, about our being Yankee pedagogues; and tried to catch from our conversation some Yankee accent or phrase. He said his overseer had bothered all day over the word "stent," that he had heard R. use; and that he came to him at night to know what he meant by it.

"Why he means, you dunce you," replied Mr. D., "what you mean when you say 'task.

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And that he had puzzled the overseer also in telling about some planters having a "raft" of slaves. He thought that the pupil ought not to hear the drawling sound, or learn any vulgar phrases from the teacher.

Is it not too often a fact that aside from the poor enunciation and manners of the common school-teacher, which are frequently too bad for the young learner to imitate, his language is the false syntax to all the grammar he teaches. He is a paradox.

During the evening I told Mr. D. I thought he resembled Gen. CASS very much in his looks.

He begged my pardon, for he could not receive my compliment-he'd rather look like any other man. He spoke in bitter terms of him and the "little giant." replied that Gen. CASS was considered the NESTOR of American Democracy, and the "little giant" its DIOMEDE. He "reckoned not," or if so, they and their followers were no "kith and kin" of his.

But the North had a man worth them all-MILLARD FILLMORE.

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