But the poor girl was already _home_--home where her sufferings and her sorrows were over, and all her tears were wiped away forever!
We four bore away the mother and the child. A number of blankets were in the bottom of the wagon, and we laid the bodies carefully upon them. When all seemed ready, the Colonel, who was still standing by the side of the dead, turned to my new friend, and said: "Barnes, will you loan me a pillow? I will send it back to-night."
"Sartin, Cunnel;" and the farmer soon brought one from the house. Lifting tenderly the head of the drowned girl, the Colonel placed it beneath her, and smoothing back her tangled hair, he gently covered her face with his handkerchief, as if she could still feel his kindness, or longer cared for the pity or the love of mortal. Yet, who knows but that her parted soul, from the high realm to which it had soared, may not then have looked down, have seen that act, and have forgiven him!
In the first moments of grief the sympathy of friends, and the words of consolation bring no relief. How much more harshly do such words grate on the ear when the soul is bowed down by remorse and unavailing regret! Then the wounded spirit finds peace nowhere but with God.
I saw that the Colonel would be alone, and turning to him, as he prepared to follow the strange vehicle, which, with its load of death, was already jolting its way over the rough forest road, I said,
"Will you pardon me, if I remain with your friend here for awhile? I will be at the mansion before dark."
"Oh, certainly, my friend, come when you feel disposed," he replied, and mounting his horse he was soon out of sight among the trees.
"Now, Barnes," I said, shaking off the gloomy feelings that had oppressed me: "come, I must see that wife of yours, and get a glimpse of how you live?"
"Sartin, stranger; come in; I'll give ye th' tallest dinner my 'oman can scare up, an' she's sum pumkins in th' cookin' line;" and he led the way to the farm-house.
As I turned to follow, I slipped a half-dollar into the hand of the darky who was holding my horse, and asked him to put her again into the stable.
"I'll do dat, sar, but I karn't take dis; masaa doant 'low it nohow;" he replied, tendering me back the money.