Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1879-04-10
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A MOTHERS DARING.

The great Golden Eagle, the pride and
the fear Of the parish, swoopcd down and
away with something in his talons. One
single, sudden female strickland then
shouts and Out.cres, as if Il church spire
had tumbled down on a congregation at
sacrament
Hannah Lamonds BARN! Hannah
Lamond's BARN! was the loud fastsprcad-
ing cry. "Thc eagles taen aft Hannah
Lamond's bain' and many hundred
feet were in another instant hurrying
toward the mountain.
Two miles OF hill and dale, and copsc
and shingle, and many intersccting brooks,
lay between; but in an incredible short
time the foot OF the mountain wss alive
with people. The eyric 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 cSsaying thcirncw wings
in discontinue.
"Whats the use-whut's the usc'o any
puir human means? We have me power
but in praycr!" And many knclt 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 II stone with face per.
fectly white, and eyes like those Of mad
person, fixed on the eyrir. Nn.body mo-
ticed her; for strong as all sympnthirs
with her had been at the SwOpp of thu
eagle, they were now swallowed up in
the agony of eycsight.
"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 flow
off through the brakes and over the huge
stones, up-up-up-faster than even
huntsman ran to the death-fearess as a
goat playing among the precipices. Nc
one dOubtcd-nO one could doubt-that
| she would soon be dashed to pieces. But
have not people who walk in their sleep
obcdient to the mysterious guidance oI
dreams, climed the walls of old RUNS and
found footing, even in decrcpitude, along
the edge of unguarded battlements, and
down diapidatel staircases, deep as draw
wells or coal pits, and returned with oper
fixed and unseeing eyes, unframed, t
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 a mothers pas
sion-who sees her baby, whose warn
mouth has Just left her breast, hurried OF
by demon to a hideous death-bear he
limbs alott wherever there is dust to dust
till she reaches that devouring den, ant
fercer and more furious than any bird o
prey that ever bathed his beak in blood
throttle the fends that, with their heav,
wings, would fain flap her down the cliff
and hold up her child in deliveranCe.
No stop-no stay; she knew not that sh
drew her breath. Beneath her feet Provi
dence fastened every root. How was Sh
ever to descend? That fear, then, bu
once crossed her heart, as up-up-up
| the little image made Of her own flesh am
blood.
"The God who holds me up now fror
perishing-will not the same God save m
when my child is at my bieast?"
| Down came the fierce rushing of th
eagles wings, each savage bird dashin
close to her head, so that she saw the vel
low Of their wrathtul eyes. All at ono
they guailed and were cowed. Yelling
they flew off to the stump of an ash jul
ting out Of the cliff, thousand feet abov
the cataract; and the Christian mother
falling across the eyrie IN the midst {
bones and blood, clasped her child, dead
dead, no doubt, but unmangled and III
torn, and swaddled up just as it was whe
she laid it down asleep among the fires
hay in a nook Of the harvest field. Oh
: what a pang of perfect blessedness trans
fixed her heart from that faint, feeble CT
: cit lives! it lives!" And barring hi
bosom with loud laughter, and eyes as dr
as stones, she felt the lips of the uncol
! scious innocent once more murmuring {
the fount of life and love.
"0h! thou great and thou dreadful Goo
whittier hast Thou brought me? Oh! say
me, lest | perish, even for thy own name
sake! Oh, Thou who died to save sii
ners, have mercy upon mel"
Cliffs, chasms, blocks of stone, and I'll
: skeletons Of old trees-far, far down-an
dwindled into specks thousand creatur,
of her own kind, stationary, or running
: and fro! Was that the sound of u
7 waterfall, or the faint roar of voices!
: that her native strathe and that tuft
/, trees-does it contain the hunt in whiC
a stands the cradle of her child? Never mo
: shall it be rocked by her footl Here mu
she die, and when her breast is exhaustt
her baby too. And those horrid beak
s and eyes, and talons, and wings will r
turn and her child will be devoured
I last, even within the dead arms that CO
1 protect il no more!
!: Where, all this while, was Mark Stuar
t the sailorp Half way up the cliffs. b
his eyes had got dim, and his head dizz
: and his heart sick; and he who had reef,
s the top-gallant sail when ut midnight h
o coming Of the gale was heard afar, co
8 cred his face with his hands, and dar,
/ look no longer on the swimming heights
n "And who will take care Of my po