Page:The Partisan, v1.djvu/178

 r· a run raamrsax. 175 parting, a solemn renewal of their pledges, and, in a few moments, the two partisans were on horse, speeding down the long avenue on the way to their encampment. . CHAPTER XIV. t i ""l‘isawild naght, yet there are those abroad, The storm o ends not. ’Tis but oppression hides, i While fear, the scourge of conscience, lifts a whip, Beyond his best capacity to ily." Tas evening, which had been beautiful before, had undergone ·a change. The moon.was obscured, and gigantic shadows,·dense and winged, hurried with deep- toned cries along the heavens, as if in angry pursuit. Occasionally, in sudden gusts, the winds ‘moaned heavily among the pines; ·a cooling freshness impreg- nated the atmosphere, and repeated flashes of shar st lightning imparted to the prospect ’a splendour which illuminated, while increasing the perils of that path which our adventurers were now pursuing. Large · drops, at moments, fell from the driving clouds, and every thing promised thecoming on of one of those . sudden and severe thunder-storms, so common to the early summer of the South. t Singleton looked up anxiously at the wild confusion of sky and forest around him. The woods seemed to apprehend the danger, and the melancholy sighing of their branches appeared to indicate an instinct con- sciousness, which had its moral likeness to the feeling in the bosom of the observer. How many of these. mighty pines were to be prostrated under that approach- ing tempest! how._many beautiful vines, which had clung to them like affections that only desire an object to fasten upon, would share in their ruin! How could Singleton overlook the analogy between the for·