Democrat and sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1853-1866, 1855-02-01

NOUS green reptile, with an ice-cold length
of body, and the sharpest sting of any snake,
save one
| g And what one is that 2" asked bystan-
der, overhearing him.
/ 1t was a dark-browed man. who put the
! question; he had an eyasive eve, which, in
| the course of doxen years, had looked no
mortal directly in the face. There was an
ambignity' about this persons character
stain upon his reputation--yet none could tell
PRECISELY of what nature although the city
/ gossips, male and female, whispered the most
atrocious surmises Until recent period, he
had followed the sea, and was, in. fact, the
very ship-mastcr whom George Herkimer had
| encountered, under such singular crcumstan-
ces, in the Grecian Archipelago
- What bosem-serpent has the eharfaest
sting repeated this man: but he put the
question as if by reluctant necessity, and
grew pale while he was uttering it. p
Why need you ask I" replied Roderick,
with look of dark intelligence. :. Look IN
to your own breast Hark, my serpent bis
tirs himself! He, acknowledges the presence
of masterpiece p
And then, as the bystanders afterwards af-
irmed, a kissing sound was heasd, ~apparent-
ly in Roderick Elliston's breast. 1t was said
tails of the ship-naster, as if snake were act
ually lurking there, and had been aroused by
the call of its brother reptile. Ifthere were,
in fact any such sound, 1t might have been
caused by a malicious exercise of yentrilo-
quism, on the part of Roderick. as3
Thus, making his own actual serpent-if
serpent there actually was in his bosom-the
type of each mans fatal error or boarded sin,
or unquiet conscience, and striking his sting
so unreInorsely into the sorest spot, we may
well imagine that Roderick became the pest
of the city Nobody could elude him !; none
could withstand him. He grappled with the
ugliest truth that he could lay his hands on,
and compelled his adversary TO do the same.
Strange spectacle in human life, where it is
the instructive effort of one and all, TO hide
those sad realities, and leave them undsturb-
ed beneath heap of superficial topics, which
constitutes the materials ofintercourse between
man and man 1t was not to be tolerated
that Roderick Elliston should break through
the taeit compact, by which the world has
done its best to secure repose, without relin-
gushing evil. The victims of his malicious
remarks, it is true, had brothers enough to
keep them in countenance for, by Roderick's
theory, every mortal bosom harbored either a
brood of small serpents,- or one oyergrown
the city could not bear this new apostle. 1t
wa: sIenasnded by nearly all and particularly
by the most respectable Inhabitants, that Ro-
derrick should no longer be permitted to vio
late the received rules of decoruin, by obtru-
ding his own bosom serpent to the public
gaze, and dragging those of decent people
from their lurking places,
Accordingly, his relatives interfered, and
placed him, IN prirate asylum for the n
sane. When the news was noised abroad 1t
was observed that many persons walked the
streets with freer countenances, and covered
their breasts less carefully with their hands.
His confinement however, although it con-
tributed not a little to the peace Of the town,
operated unfavorably upon Roderick himself.
In solitude, his melancholy grew more black
and sullen. He spent whole days indeed,
il was his sole occupation-in comnlunlng
with the serpent. A conversation was sus-
tanned, in which, it seemed, the hidden mon
ster bore part, though unintelligibly to the
listeners, and inaudibly, except II. a hiss =
Singular as it may appear, the sufferer had
now contracted sort of affection for his tor
mentor mingled, however, with the intensest
loathing and horror. Nor were such discor-
dant emotions Incompatible; each, On the
contrary. impaired strength and poignancy to
its opposite Horrible love-horrible antipa-
thy.enlbraeing one another in his bosom,
and both concentrating themselves upon be-
ing that had crept into his vitals, or been en-
rendered there, and which nourished
with his food, and lived upon his life, and was
as intimate with him as his own heart, and
vet was the foulest of all created things -
But not the less was it the true type of
morbid nature.
Sometimes, in his moments of rage and BIT
ter hatred AGAINST the snake and himself. Ro-
derrick determined to be the death of him,
even at the expense of his own life. Once he
attempted it by starvation But, while the
wratchnd mar was on the point of famishing,
the monster seemed to feed upon his heart,
and to thrive and was gameseme, as ifit were
the sweetest and most congenial diet. Then
he priyily took a dose of active poison, imagi-
ming that it would not fail to Kill either him
self, or the devil that possessed him, or both
together Another mistake; for if Roderick
had not vet been destroyed by his ewn pois-s
oned heart, nor the snake by gnawing it, they
had little to fear from arsenic ar corrosive
sublmate Indeed, the venemous pest ap-
peared to operate as an antidote against all
other poisons. The physicians tried to suffo-
cate the fend with tobaeco-snioke. He
breatlled it as freely as ifit were his native
atmosphere. Again, they drugged their pa
tent with opium, and drenched him with in
toxicating liquors. hoping that the snake
might thus be reduced to stupor, and perhaps
be elected from the stomach They suecee-
ded in rendering Roderick insellbie but,
placing their hands upon his breast, they
were inexpressibly shorror-stricken to feei the
monster wriggling twinipg, and darting 70
and fro, within Its narrow limits, evidently