's forefeet upon the crown or arching
centre of the road. The larger half of the little equipage had then cleared
our over-towering shadow: _that_ was evident even to my own agitated sight.
But it mattered little that one wreck should float off in safety, if upon
the wreck that perished were embarked the human freightage. The rear part
of the carriage--was _that_ certainly beyond the line of absolute ruin?
What power could answer the 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. Oh,
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 for ever.

The horse was planted immovably, with his fore-feet 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 t