Phenix gazette. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1825-1833, 1827-01-18
(rrom Blaekwood's Magazine, just published.)
HANNAH I.ANOND AND THE EAGLE.

from Backwood's Magazine, just Puoisheo'j
HANNAH LAMOND AND THE EAGLE.
Almost all the people in the parish were
leading in their medow-hay (there were not In |
all its ten miles square twenty acres o! rye
GRASSY on the same day Of midsummer, so dry
inp was the sunshine and The wind-and huge |
besned.up wains, that almost hid from view the
horses that drew them along the sward oegia-
ming 10 get green with second growth, were
moving in al. directions towards the snug farm
wards. Never had the parish seemed before so
no,ulous. Jocund was the balmy air with
laughter. whistle, and song, But the Treg-
nomeus threw the shadow Of zone o'clock" on
the green dial face Of the earth-the horses
were unyoked and took instantly to grazing
groups Of men, women, lads, lasses and chill
dren, collected under grove, and bush, and
hedge row--graces were pronounced, some OF
them rather too tedious, in presence OF the
man,ling milk cans, bullion bars Of butter, &
cracking cakes; and the great Being who gave
them that day their daily bread, looked down
from his Eternal Throne, we'll pleased with the
pie,y Of his thankful creatures.
The great Golden Eagle, the pride and the
pest of the parish, stopped down, and away
with something in his taloens One single sud-
den female strickland then shouts and out
cries as if church spire had tumoled down on
a congregation a, a sacrament! "Hannah La
mond's bairn!''~ II annal Lamond's BARN." was
the loud disappearing cry. The Eagles ta'en
off Hannah Lamoud's bairn!' and many hun
dred feet were in another instant hurrying to-
wards the mountain, Two miles Of hill, and
dale, and copse, and single, and many inter
sec,ng brooks lay between, but in an incredi-
bly shor, time, the foot Of the mountain was a.
live with people. Tie eyrie was we'll known,
and both old birds were visible on the rock
lepe. But who shall scale that dizzy cliff, which
Mark Steuart the sailor, who had been at the
storming Of many fort, attempted in vain?-
| All kept gazing, weeping, wringing Of hands
in vain, rooted to the ground, or running back
and forwards, like so many ants essaying their
new wings in observation-disclosures the use
| what's the use O. ony puir human means! We
have no power but in prayer" and many knelt
.own-fa,hers and mothers thinking of their
own babies--as If they would force the deaf
heavens TO hear!
Hannah Lamond had all this while been Sit
ting on a rock, with face perfectly white, and
ewes like those Of a mad person, fixed on the
eyrie. Nobody had noticed her; for strong as
all sympathies with her had been at the swoop
of the Eagle, they were now swallowed UP in
the agony Of eye sight. Only last Sabbath was
nv sweet wee wean baptized in the name OF the
Father, and the Son, and The Holy Ghost" and
on uttering these words, she flew OFT through
the brakes, and over the huge stones, up-up
-up--faster than ever huntsman ran in to the
death-.-fearless as a goat playing among the
mr.. cipices. No one doubted, no one could
doubt, that she would soon be dashed TO pieces.
Blu, have not people who walk in their sleep,
obedient TO the mysterious guidance OF dreams
clomb the walls Of old ruins, and found io24,ng
even 10 DIES rifs. and down dilapida,ed siairca.
ses, deep as draw wells, coal pits, and re-
turned with open, fixed, and unseeing eyes, un-
harmed to their beds at midnight? 1t is all the
work Of the soul, TO whom the body is slave;
and shall not the agony Of a mothers passion
who sees her baby, whose warm mouth had just
left her breast, hurried off by demon to hid
eous dsath--bear her limos aloft wherever there
is dust to dust, TIL she reach that devouring
den, and fiercer and more furious far, in the
passion Of love, than any bird Of prey tina, ever
bathed It's beak in blood, throttle The 6ends that
with their heavy wings would fain flap her down
the cliffs, and hold up her child in deliverance
before The eve of the aIl-seeing God!
No stop-no stay-she knew not that she
fastened every loose stone, and to her hands
strengthened every root. How was she ever TO
descend? That fear, then, but once crossed
her heart, as up-up-to the little image made
of her own flesh and blood The God who
holds me now from perishing-will not the
same Col save ME when my child is on my bo-
SOM Down came the fierce rushing Of the
Eagles wings-ea,h savage bird dashing close
to her her head, so that she saw the yellow of
their wrathful eyes. AL at once they quailed
and were cowed. Yelling t6ey few off to the
stump of an ash jutting GU, OF a cliff, thousand
feet above the cataract, and the Christian mo-
:her falling across the eyre, in the midst of
bones and blood; casped her child-dead-
observation-disclosures doubt: but unmangled and un-
torn. and swaddled up just as it was when she
laid it down asleep among the fresh hay in a
rook of the harvest field. Oh! wha, panss Of
perfec, bessedness lransGxed her heart from
tina, fain, feeble cry--it tives---it lives!' and
barring her bosom, with loud laughter, and eyes
dry a. stones, she felt the lips Of the uncon-
scious innocent once more murmuring at the
fount Of life aud love! % thou great and thou
dreadful God. whittier has, thou brought me;
one Of the most useful OF thy creatures? Oh!
save my soul, lest j. perish, even fol thy own
names sake! Oh Thou, 81 no diedst to save