Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1857-07-09

roots of the weed upon which I partially de-
pended gave way as was in the act of turn
ing Sir, ones senses are sharpened in
deadly peril, and as I live now, distinctly
heard the bells of Trinity Ginning midnight,
as I rose to the surface the next instant, i'm
mersed in the stone cauldron where [ must
swim for my life, Heaven only could tell
how long!
THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.
[ am capital swimmer and this natural
ly gave me a degree of self possession
Falling as [ had, [ of course had pitched
out some distance from the sloping parapet.
A few strokes brought me to the edge.
really was not yet certain but that [ could
Chamber up the face of the wall anywhere
I hoped that could [ felt certain at least
there were some spots where [ might get
hold with my hands, even if [ did not ulti-
mately ascend it.
| tried the nearest spot. The inclination
of the wall was so vertical that it did not
even rest me to lean against it. Surely,
thought, there must be some fssure like
those in which that ill-omened weed had
found place for its root.
There was none. My fingers became sore
in busying themselves with the harsh and
Iinhospitable stones. My feet slipped from
the smooth, and Shiny masonry beneath the
water and several times my face came in
contact with the wall, when my foothold
gave wagon the instant that [ seemed to
have found some diminutive rocky cleft up
on which could stay myself.
Sir, did you ever see rat drowned in a
half-flled hogshead? How he swims round
and round, and after vainly trying the sides
again and again with his paws, fixes his
eyes upon the upper rim as if he would look
himself out of his watery prison. | thought
Of the miserable vermin. thought of him as
l had often watched him thus in dying ago
nies, when cruel urchin Of eight or ten
Boys are horribly cruel, sir-boys. women
and savages. All child-like things are
cruel from a,want of thought and from per-
verse ingenuity, although by instinct each
of these is SO tender. You may not have
observed it. but savage is as tender to its
own young p
py-the same boy that will torture kitten
out of existence. thought, then, [ say,
of the rat drowning in a half filled cask of
water, and lifting his gaze out of the vessel
as he grew more and more desperate, and [
flung myself on my back, and floating thus
fixed my eyes upon the face of the moon.
Then is well enough, in her way, how
ever you may look at her; but her appearance
is, to say, the least of it, peculiar to man
floating on his back in the center Of a stone
tank, with dead wall of fifteen or twenty
feet rising squarely on every side Of him.
The last time [ had noted the planet with
my emotion, she was on the wane. Mary
was with me. [ had brought her out here
one morning to look at the view from the
top of the reservoir. She said little Of the
scene, but as we talked of our childish loves,
[ saw that its fresh features were incorpo-
rating themselves with tender memories of
the past, and was content.
There was rich golden haze upon the
landscape, and as my own spirit rose amid
the yoluptuous atmosphere, she pointed to
the waning planet, discernable like faint
cash in the welkin, and wondered how long
it Wonld be before the leaves would fall =
Strange girl; did she mean to rebuke my
Joyous mood, as if we had no right to
be happy while nature, withering in her
pomp, and the sickly moon wasting in the
blaze of moontide, were there to remind us
Of the gone-forever?' "They will all re-
new themselves, dear Mary" said L, en-
couragingly. land there is one who will
ever keep tryste alike with thee and nature
through all the seasons, if thou wilt but be
true to one of us, and remain as now child
Of nature
A tear sprang to her eye, and then search
ing her pocket for her card case, she re-
membered an engagement to be present at
Miss Lawson's opening Of fall bonnets at 2
o'clock And yet dear, wild, wayward
Mary, [ thought of her now.
You have probably outlived this sort of
thing, sir; but I, looking at the moon, as [
foated there upturned to her yellow light,
thought Of the loved being whose tears would
flow when she heard of my singular fate, at
once so grotesque, yet melancholy to aw-
fulness.
And how often we have talked, too, of
that sylvan shepherd who spent his damp
nights upon the hills, gazing as I do on the
lustrous planet! who will revel with her
amid those old superstitions who from our
own ualegended woods, will evoke their yet
undetected haunting spirits? Who peer
with her in prying scrutiny into natures
laws, and challenge the whispers of poetry
from the voiceless throat Of matter? Who
laugh merrily over the stupid guess-work Of
pedants, that never mingled with the inf
nitude of nature; through love exhaustless
and all-embracing, as we have? Poor girl,
she will be companionless.
Alas, companionless, never-save in the
exciting stages of some brisk filtration. She