The Saline County journal. [volume] (Salina, Kan.) 1871-1893, 1879-04-10
szWisreHany.
A MOTHERS DARING.


the fear Of the parish, swooped down and
away with something in his talons. One
single, sudden female strickland then
shouts and out-cries, as if a church spire
had tumbled down on a congregation at
sacrament.
''Hannah Lamond's BARN! Hannah
Lamond's bairn!" was the loud fastspread-
ing cry. 1.-The eagles taen aft Hannah
Lamond's bairn!" and many hundred
feet were in another instant hurrying
toward the mountain.
Two miles of hull and dale, and copse
and single, and many interesting brooks,
lay between; but In an incredible short
time the foot of the mountain wss alive
with people. The eyrie was well known,
and both old birds were visible on the rock
edge. But who shall scale that dizzy cliff,
which Mark Stuart, the sailor, who had
been at the storming of many fort, once
attempted in vain? All kept gazing, or
weeping, or wringing Of hands, rooted to
the ground, or running back and forward
like SO many ants essaying their new wings
in discontinue.
"What's the use-what's the use o any
puir human means? We have nae power
but In prayer!" And many knelt down
fathers and mothers thinking of their
own babies-as if they would force the
deaf heavens to hear.
Hannah Lamond had all this while
been sitting on stone with face per-
fectly white, and eyes like those of a mad
person, fixed on the eyrie. Nobody no
ticed 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 eyesight.
''Only last Sabbate was my sweet wee
wean baptized in the name Of the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Ghost!"
And on uttering these words, she flew
off through the brakes and over the huge
stones, up-up-up-faster than ever
huntsman ran to the death-fearless as a
goat playing among the precipices. No
one doubted-no one could doubt-that
she would soon be dashed to pieces. But
have not people who walk in their sleep,
obedient to the mysterious guidance of
dreams. climed the walls Of old ruins and
found footing, even in decrepitude, along
the edge of unguarded battlements, and
down dilapidated staircases, deep as draw
wells or coal pits, and returned with open
liked and unseeing eyes, unframed, to
their beds at midnight? It's all the work
of the soul, to whom the body is a slave;
and shall not the agony of mothers pas
sion-who sees her baby, whose warm
mouth has Just left her breast, hurried of
by demon to a hideous death-bear her
limbs aloft wherever there is dust to dust,
till she reaches that devouring den, and
6ercer and more furious than any bird of
prey that ever bathed his beak in blood,
throttle the fends that, with their heavy
wings, would fain flap her down the cliffs
and hold up her child in deliverance.
No stop-no stay; she knew not that she
drew her breath. Beneath her feet Provi-
dence fastened every root. How was she
ever to descend? That fear, then, but
once crossed her heart, as up-up-up to
the little image made of her own flesh and
blood.
The God who holds me up now from
perishing-will not the same God save me
when my child is at my breast?''-
Down came the fierce rushing of the
eagles wings, each savage bird dashing
close to her head, so that she saw the vel
low of their wrathful eyes. All at once
they quailed and were cowed. Yelling.
they flew off to the stump of an ash tut.
ting out Of the cliff, a thousand feet above
the cataract; and the Christian mother.
falling across the eyre, IN the midst of
bones and blood, clasped her child, dead
dead, no doubt, but unmangied and ur-
torn, and swaddled up Just as it was when
she laid it down asleep among the fresh
hay in nook of the harvest field. Oh,
What pang Of perfect blessedness trans
lived her heart from that faint, feeble CIV
1T lives! it lives!" And barring her
bosom with loud laughter, and eyes as div
as stones. she felt the lips of the uncon-
sclous innocent once more murmuring a.
the fount of life and love.
"Oh! thou great and thou dreadful God,
whittier hast Thou brought me? Oh, save
me, lest l perish. even for thy own names
sake! Oh, Thou who died to save SIN
ners, have mercy upon mel"
Cliffs. chasms, blocks of stone, and the
skeletons If old trees-far, far down-and
dwindled into specks thousand creatures
OF her own kind, stationary, or running to
and fro! Was that the sound of the
waterfall, or the faint roar of voices! Is
that her native strafhe and that tuft of
treeS-does il contain the hunt IN which
stands the cradle of her child? Never more
shall II be rocked by her foot! Here must
she die. and when her breast is exhausted
her baby too. And those horrid beaks,
and eyes. ard talons, and wings will re-
turn and her child will be devoured ct |
last. even within the dead arms that can
protect it no more!
Where, al this while, was 1ayk Stuart, |
tko saitePe half nav IN tAn el{{h AutA