“Mr. William,” said Mrs. Jones, “come back; look at the water a roaring and tossing, and your horse is restless already with the noise.  Don’t throw your life away; think of your sister.”

“I’m thinking of her, good Mrs. Jones.  Never fear for me,” said he, looking back at her with a smile, at the same time urging his horse toward the edge of the creek, where there was a gradual descent from the hill.

As Mrs. Jones had said, the horse had already become restless, he was impatiently moving his head, prancing and striking his hoofs against the hard ground.  William restrained him, as he too quickly descended the path, and it may be the young man then hesitated, as he endeavored to check him, but it was too late.  The very check rendered him more impatient; springing aside from the path he dashed himself from rock to rock.  William saw his danger, and with a steady hand endeavored to control the frightened animal.  This unequal contest was soon decided.  The nearer the horse came to the water the more he was alarmed,—­at last he sprang from the rock, and he and his rider disappeared.

“Oh, my God!” said Mrs. Jones, “he is gone.  The poor boy; and there is no one to help him.”  She at first hid her eyes from the appalling scene, and then approached the creek and screamed as she saw the horse struggling and plunging, while William manfully tried to control him.  Oh! how beat her heart, as with uplifted hands, and stayed breath, she watched for the issue—­it is over now.

“Hush! hush! children,” said their mother, pale as death, whose triumph she had just witnessed.  “Oh! if your father had been here to have saved him—­but who could have saved him?  None but thou, Almighty God!” and she kneeled to pray for, she knew not what.

“Too late, too late!” yet she knelt and alternately prayed and wept.

Again she gazed into the noisy waters—­but there was nothing there, and then calling her frightened and weeping children into the house, she determined to set forth alone, for assistance—­for what?

* * * * *

Oh! how long was that night to Ellen, though she believed her brother remained at C——.  She did not sleep till late, and sad the awakening.  Voices in anxious whispers fell upon her ear; pale faces and weeping eyes, were everywhere around her—­within, confusion; and useless effort without.  Her uncle wept as for an only son; her aunt then felt how tenderly she had loved him, who was gone forever.  The farmer, who had warned him at the tavern-door, smote his breast when he heard his sad forebodings were realized.  The young and the old, the rich and the poor, assembled for days about the banks of the creek, with the hopes of recovering the body, but the young rider and his horse were never seen again.  Ah!  Ellen was an orphan now—­father, mother, and friend had he been to her, the lost one.  Often did she lay her head on the kind breast of their old nurse, and pray for death.