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And I was just breathing freely, after my choking pain,

When the last one of the troopers suddenly drew his rein.

Frightened I was to death, sir; I scarce dared look in his face,

As he asked for a drink of water, and glanced around

the place.

I gave him a cup, and he smiled-'twas only a boy,

you see,

Faint and worn, with dim-blue eyes; and he'd sailed on the Tennessee.

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Only sixteen he was, sir—a fond mother's only sonOff and away with Morgan before his life had begun; The damp drops stood on his temples; drawn was the 15 boyish mouth;

And I thought me of the mother waiting down in the South.

Oh! pluck was he to the backbone, and clear grit through and through;

Boasted and bragged like a trooper; but the big words wouldn't do;

The boy was dying, sir, dying, as plain as plain could

be,

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Worn out by his ride with Morgan up from the Ten-25

nessee.

But when I told the laddie that I too was from the

South,

Water came in his dim eyes, and quivers around his

mouth.

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"Do you know the Blue-grass country?" he wistful began to say;

Then swayed like a willow sapling, and fainted dead away.

I had him into the log house, and worked and brought him to;

I fed him, and I coaxed him, as I thought his mother'd do;

And when the lad got better, and the noise in his

head was gone,

Morgan's men were miles away, galloping, galloping on.

"Oh, I must go!" he muttered; "I must be up and away!

Morgan-Morgan is waiting for me! Oh, what will Morgan say?"

But I heard a sound of tramping, and kept him back from the door

The ringing sound of horses' hoofs that I had heard before.

And on, on came the soldiers-the Michigan cavalry— And fast they rode, and black they looked, galloping rapidly :

They had followed hard on Morgan's track; they had followed day and night;

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But of Morgan and Morgan's raiders they had never 25 caught a sight.

And rich Ohio sat startled through all those summer

days;

For strange, wild men were galloping over her broad

highways

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Now here, now there, now seen, now gone, now north, now east, now west,

Through river valleys and corn land farms, sweeping away her best.

A bold ride and a long ride! But they were taken · at last.

They almost reached the river by galloping hard and

fast;

But the boys in blue were upon them ere ever they gained the ford,

And Morgan, Morgan the raider, laid down his terrible sword.

Well, I kept the boy till evening-kept him against his will

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But he was too weak to follow, and sat there pale and 15 still.

When it was cool and dusky-you'll wonder to hear

me tell,

But I stole down to that gully and brought up Kentucky Belle.

I kissed the star on her forehead-my pretty, gentle lass

But I knew that she'd be happy back in the old Blue

grass.

A suit of clothes of Conrad's, with all the money I had, And Kentuck, pretty Kentuck, I gave to the worn-out

lad.

I guided him to the southward as well as I knew how; The boy rode off with many thanks and many a back

ward bow;

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And then the glow it faded, and my heart began to swell,

As down the glen away she went, my lost Kentucky Belle!

When Conrad came in the evening, the moon was shining high;

Baby and I were both crying-I couldn't tell him why

But a battered suit of rebel gray was hanging on the

wall,

And a thin old horse, with drooping head, stood in Kentucky's stall.

Well, he was kind, and never once said a hard word

to me;

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He knew I couldn't help it-'twas all for the Ten-18

nessee.

But, after the war was over, just think what came to

pass

A letter, sir; and the two were safe back in the old Blue-grass.

The lad had got across the border, riding Kentucky Belle;

And Kentuck she was thriving, and fat, and hearty, and well;

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He cared for her, and kept her, nor touched her with Å whip or spur.

Ah! we've had many horses since, but never a horse like her!

LXXVIII.

THE COMING OF THE HURRICANE.

BY LAFCADIO HEARN.'

JULY was dying; for weeks no fleck of cloud had broken the heavens' blue dream of eternity; winds held their breath; slow wavelets caressed the bland brown beach with a sound as of kisses and whispers. To one who found himself alone, beyond the limits of the village and beyond the hearing of its voices, the vast silence, the vast light, seemed full of weirdness. And these hushes, these transparencies, do not always inspire a causeless apprehension; they are omens sometimes— omens of coming tempest. Nature-incomprehensible 10 Sphinx!-before her mightiest bursts of rage, ever puts forth her divinest witchery, makes more manifest her awful beauty....

But in that forgotten summer the witchery lasted many long days-days born in rose-light, buried in gold. 15 It was the height of the season. The long myrtleshadowed village was thronged with its summer population; the big hotel could hardly accommodate all its guests; the bathing-houses were too few for the crowds who flocked to the water morning and evening. were diversions for all-hunting and fishing parties, yachting excursions, rides, music, games, promenades. Carriage wheels whirled flickering along the beach, seaming its smoothness noiselessly, as if muffled. Love wrote its dreams upon the sand.

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Then one great noon, when the blue abyss of day

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