conclusively, and, in sooth, no time; for now he began to feel a strange
sensation of weakness; his eyes swam, and grew darkened; a numbness
paralyzed his whole frame; a sickness seized upon his heart; and, after
sundry feeble efforts, under a strong will, to command and compel his
powers, they finally gave way, and he sunk from his steed upon the long
grass, and lay unconscious;--his last thought, ere his senses left him,
being that of death! Here let us leave him for a little space, while we
hurriedly seek better knowledge of him in other quarters.




CHAPTER III.

YOUNG LOVE--THE RETROSPECT.


It will not hurt our young traveller, to leave him on the greensward, in
the genial spring-time; and, as the night gathers over him, and a
helpful insensibility interposes for the relief of pain, we may avail
ourselves of the respite to look into the family chronicles, and show
the why and wherefore of this errant journey, the antecedents and the
relations of our hero.

Ralph Colleton, the young traveller whose person we have described, and
whose most startling adventure in life, we have just witnessed, was the
only son of a Carolinian, who could boast the best blood of English
nobility in his veins. The sire, however, had outlived his fortunes,
and, late in life, had been compelled to abandon the place of his
nativity--an adventurer, struggling against a proud stomach, and a