41^ WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER XXX, 



THE SUEEENDEK AT DISCKETION. 



" Of bowe and sliafte lie bin bereft, 

 And eke of bugil home ; 

 A goodlye \riglite, by craftie slyglite 



Alake ! is overborne." Old Ballad. 



The reader must carry his mind over three years that 

 had flown between the events narrated in our last chap- 

 ter and those about to be in the present. A few more 

 grey hairs had interspersed the Doctor's curls, another 

 wrinkle marked Mike's eyelid, and a little of the fresh- 

 ness of my life had wasted, when the Christmas festivi- 

 ties of a happy house brought us all once again together. 



We met at the Moorlands, a sea-island plantation, 

 one of many that from underneath the live oaks are 

 visible from the arms of the sea that indent the 

 Georgia coast. Happy, dignified homes, at once the 

 centre of an extensive agriculture and an abundant 

 and unostentatious hospitality. Boys were home from 

 college; packages of northern goods and books had 

 arrived ; the negroes Avere gay with their Christmas gifts 

 and privileges; the ladies bright with the excitement, 

 and the world with sunshine; the gentlemen were 

 boisterously preparing for the snipe and partridge shoot- 



