re all
gone, all gone: oh! come away!'

"I had heard as much of this brutal tragedy as made his allusions barely
intelligible, but on attempting to gain any further information from
him, he relapsed, as he generally did, into his usual abruptness of
manner. He now passed down towards the cultivated country, at a pace
which I was once more obliged to request him to moderate.

"'Well,' said he, 'if you don't care, I needn't, for we'll have it--I
know by the roarin' of the river and by the look of the mountains there
above.'

"'What shall we have, Raymond?' I inquired.

"'No matther,' said he, rather to himself than to me, 'we can cross the
stick.* But I'll show you the place, for I was there at the time, and
his coffin was on the top of his father's. Ha, ha, I liked that, and
they all cried but Mary, and she laughed and sung, and clapped her hands
when the clay was makin' a noise upon them, and then the people cried
more. I cried for him in the little coffin, for I loved him--I wondher
God doesn't kill M'Clutchy--the curse o' God, and the blessin' o' the
devil on him! Ha, ha, there's one now: let him take it.'

* In mountain rivers a "stick," or plank, is frequently a
substitute for a bridge.

"We still proceeded at a brisk pace for about a mile and a half,
leaving the dark and savage hills behind us, when Raymond turning about,
directed my attention to the mountains. These were overhung by masses
of black clouds, that were all charged with rain and the elements of
a tempest. From one of these depended a phenomenon which I had never
witnessed before--I mean a water spout, wavering in its black and
terrible beauty over this savage scenery, thus adding its gloomy
grandeur to the sublimity of the thunder-storm, which now deepened,
peal after peal, among the mountains. To such as are unacquainted with
mountain scenery, and have never witnessed an inland water spout, it
is only necessary to say, that it resembles a long inverted cone, that
hangs from a bank of clouds whose blackness is impenetrable. It appears
immovable at the upper part, where it joins the clouds; but, as it
gradually tapers to a long and delicate point, it waves to and fro with
a beautiful and gentle motion, which blends a sense of grace with the
very terror it excites. It seldom lasts more than a few minutes, for,
as soon as the clouds are dispersed by the thunder it disappears so
quickly, that, having once taken your eye off it when it beg