The horses were
started and the great vehicle began to move. As they passed through the
village which had been to them the scene of many happy hours, they took
a last look at the spots which were hallowed by association--the church
with its lowly spire, an emblem of that humility which befits a
Christian, and the burial-ground, where the weeping willow bent
mournfully over the head-stone which marked the graves of their parents.
The children, who were old enough to remember, never forgot their
playground, nor the white schoolhouse where the rudiments of an
education were instilled into their minds.
Their road was at first, comparatively smooth and their journey
pleasant. Their progress was interrupted by divers little incidents;
while the continual changes in the appearance of the country around
them, and the anticipation of what was to come, prevented those feelings
of despondency, which might otherwise have arisen on leaving a much
loved home. When the roads became bad or hilly, the family quit the
wagon and trudged along on foot, the mother carrying the baby Fernando
in her arms. At sunset, their day's journey finished, they halted in the
forest by the roadside to prepare their supper and pass the night. The
horses were unharnessed, watered and secured with their heads to the
trough until they had eaten their meagre allowance of corn and oats, and
then were hobbled out to grass.
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