Lewisburg chronicle. [volume] (Lewisburg, Pa.) 1850-1859, 1852-08-20

"'. AHoH Was d 'u.N, SooplBS ini LaN
and now I'm getting to be an old fellow
end here | be, cropping for dead body
tell you wha; lads, if thought anything
had really happened to Lenobia, | shoult
feel Kind o sorrowful."
~ wish, at least, you would hold your
tongue" muttered |.
The moon that night though past the
fall, was still large and oval, and having
risen between e:ght and nine o'clock, now
sEHHr a+'7a'w.sc over the river, throwing
the -'9a, opposite bank, with its woods,
into dep shadow, but lighting up the
hlAer shore pretty cfIectually. Not ray
appeared to fall on the river itself. |,
lapscd imper ccptibly away,a a broad, black.
inserutab!c depth, keeping its own secrets
from the eye of man as impenetraby as
mid ocean could.
"Well, Miles Coverdale," said Foster,
"you are the helmsman. How do you
mean to manage this business ?"
! II shall let the boat drift, broaiside
foremost, past that stump l replied 81
know the bottom, having sounded it in
fishing. The shore, on this side, after the
first step or two, goes of very abruptly !;
and there is pool, just by the stump,
twelve or fifteen feet deep. The current
could not have force enough to sweep any
sunhen object, even if partially buoyan.,
out of that hollow"
: "Come then,' said Silss "but doubt
whether l can touch bottom with this hay
rakke, if its as deep as you say. Mr..
Hollingsworth, l think you'll be the lucky
man tonight such luck as it isl
We doated past the stump, silas Fos-
ter Piled lis rake manfully, poking it as
far as he could into the water, and i'm
mersing the whole length Of his arm be-
sides.
Hollingsworth at first sat moti'nless,
with the hooked pole elevated i'll the air.
But, by and by, with nervous and jerky
movement, he began to plunge it into the
blackness that upbore US, setting his teeth,
and making precisely such ,hrusts, me-
thoug hit, as if he were stabbing q dead
ly enemy. l bent over the side of the
boat SO obscure, however, so awfully
mysterious was that dark stream, that
and the thought made me shiver like
leaf-I might as we'll have tried to look
into the enigma of the eternal world, to
discover what had become of Zenobia's
soul, as into the rivers depth, to find her
body. And there, perhaps, she lay, with
her face upward, while the shadow of the
boat, and my own pale face peering DOWN
ward, passed slowly bctwixt her and the
sky.
Once, twice, thrice, padded the boa.
up stream, and again suffered it to glide,
with the rivers slow, funeral motion,
downward. Sias Foster had raked up a
large mass Of stuff, which, as it came to-
wards the surface, looked somewhat Ike
4 flowing garment, bns proved to be a
monstrous trft Of water-wceds Hollings-
worth, with a gigantic effort, up-heaved
sunken log. When once free of the bot
tom, it rose partly out of waterfall weedy
and Shiny, dcvilish-!ooking object, which
the moon had not shone upon for half
hundred years-then plunged again, and
sullenly returned to its old resting place,
for the remnan: of the century.
CT looked ugly!' quoth Silas, Il
Laif though. !, was the evil one, on the
sane crral ID as Notwithstanding for
ZeuoJia."
He shall never get her" said I, giving
the boat strong impulc.
"That is not for you to say, my boy"
retorted the yeoman. "Pray God he
never may! Slow work this, however
1 should really be glad to fud something
Pshaw! What notion that is, when the
only good luck would be to paddle and
drift, and poke, and grope, hercabouts,
till morning, and have our labor for our
pains, For my part, should Mt wonder
if the creature had only lost her shoe in
the mud, and saved her soul alive, after
all. Ny stars how she will laugh at US,
tomorrow morning.
1t is indeseribable what an image Of
Zenobia-at the breakfast table, full Of
warm and mirthful life-this surmise OF
Silas Fosters brought before my mind.
The terrible phan,asm Of her death was
thrown by it into the remotest and dimmest
back ground, where it seemed to grow as
improbable as myth.
"Yes, Silas, it may be as you say"
cried l.
The drift of the stream had again borne
us little below the stump, when l felt
yes, felt, for it was as if the iron hook
had smote my breast-felt Hollingsworth