76 STORY OF HANNAH LAMOND 



stones and earth the psalm was hushed hut a tre- 

 mulous sohhing voice was close beside her, and lo ! a 

 she-goat, with two little kids at her feet ! * Wild 

 heights/ thought she, ( do these creatures climb, but 

 the dam will lead down her kid by the easiest paths ; 

 for O, even in the brute creatures, what is the holy 

 power of a mother's love !' and turning round her head, 

 she kissed her sleeping baby, and for the first time she 

 wept. 



" Overhead frowned the front of the precipice, never 

 touched before by human hand or foot. No one had 

 ever dreamt of scaling it; and the golden eagles knew 

 that well in their instinct, as, before they built their 

 eyrie, they had brushed it with their wings. But all the 

 rest of this part of the mountain side, though scarred, 

 and seamed, and chasmed, was yet accessible and 

 more than one person in the parish had reached the 

 bottom of the Glead's Cliff. Many were now attempt- 

 ing it, and ere the cautious mother had followed her 

 dumb guides a hundred yards through, among dangers 

 that, although enough to terrify the stoutest heart, were 

 traversed by her without a shudder, the head of one 

 man appeared, and then the head of another, and she 

 knew that God had delivered her and her child in 

 safety, into the care of their fellow-creatures. Not a 

 word was spoken eyes said enough she hushed her 

 friends with her hands, and with uplifted eyes pointed 

 to the guides sent to her by heaven. Small green plats, 

 where those creatures nibble the wild flowers, became 

 now more frequent trodden lines, almost as easy as 

 sheep-paths, showed that the dam had not led her 

 young into danger ; and now the brushwood dwindled 



