202 



THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY 



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 now from 

 perishing — will not the same God save me when my child 

 is on my bosom?' Down came the fierce rushing of the 

 Eagles' wings — each savage bird dashing close to her head, 

 so that she saw the yellow of their wrathful eyes. All at 

 once they quailed, and were cowed. Yelling, they flew off 

 to the stump of an ash jutting out of a cliff, a thousand 

 feet above the cataract, and the Christian mother falling 

 across the eyrie, in the midst of bones and blood, clasped 

 her child — dead — dead — dead, no doubt, — but unmangled 

 and untorn, and swaddled up just as it was when she laid 

 it down asleep among the fresh hay, in a nook of the harvest 

 field. Oh! what pang of perfect blessedness transfixed her 

 heart from that faint feeble cry — ' It lives — it lives — it 

 lives!' and baring her bosom, with loud laughter and eyes 

 dry as stones, she felt the lips of the unconscious innocent 

 once more murmuring at the fount of life and love! 



"Where, all this while, was Mark Steuart, the sailor? 

 Half way up the cliffs. But his eye had got dim, and his 

 head dizzy, and his heart sick; and he who had so often 

 reefed the top-gallant-sail, when at midnight the coming of 

 the gale was heard afar, covered his face with his hands, 

 and dared look no longer on the swimming heights. 'And 

 who will take care of my poor bed-ridden mother,' thought 

 Hannah, whose soul, through the exhaustion of so many 

 passions, could no more retain in its grasp that hope which 

 it had clutched in despair. A voice whispered 'God.' 

 She looked round expecting to see an angel, but nothing 

 moved except a rotten branch, that under its own weight, 

 broke off from the crumbling rock. Her eye, by some secret 

 sympathy of her soul with the inanimate object, watched its 

 fall; and it seemed to stop, notfar oft' on a small platform. Her 

 child was bound within her bosom — she remembered not 

 how or when — but it was safe — and scarcely daring to open 

 her eyes, she slid down the shelving rocks, and found herself 

 on a small piece of firm root-bound soil, with the tops of 

 bushes appearing below. With fingers suddenly strength- 

 ened into the power of iron, she swung herself down by 

 briar and broom, and heather, and dwarf birch. There a 

 loosened stone lept over a ledge, and no sound was heard, 

 so profound was its fall. There, the shingle rattled down 

 the screes, and she hesitated not to follow. Her feet 

 bounded against the huge stone that stopped them, but she 

 felt no pain. Her body was callous as the cliff. Steep as 

 the wall of a house was now the side of the precipice. 

 But it was matted with ivy, centuries old — long ago dead, 

 and without a single green leaf — but with thousands of 

 arm -thick stems petrified into the rock, and covering it as 

 with a trellice. She bound her babv to her neck, and 



with hands and feet clung to that fearful ladder. Turning 

 round her head, and looking down, lo! the whole population 

 of the parish, so great was the multitude, on their knees! 

 and hush, the voice of psalms — a hymn, breathing the 

 spirit of one united prayer! Sad and solemn was the strain 

 — but nothing dirge-like — breathing not of death, but de- 

 liverance. Often had she sung that tune, perhaps the very 

 words, but them she heard not, in her own hut — she and 

 her mother — or in the kirk, along with all the congrega- 

 tion. An unseen hand seemed fastening her fingers to the 

 ribs of ivy, and in sudden inspiration, believing that her 

 life was to be saved, she became almost as fearless as if she 

 had been changed into a winged ci'eature. Again her feet 

 touched stones and earth — the psalm was hushed — but a 

 tremulous sobbing 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 0, even in 

 the brute creatures, what is the holy power of a mother's 

 love!' and turning round her head, she kissed her sleep- 

 ing 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 

 bru.shed 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 attempting 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 crea- 

 tures 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 away into straggling shrubs, and the 

 party stood on a little eminence above the stream^ and 

 forming part of the strath. There had been trouble and 

 agitation, much sobbing and many tears among the multi- 

 tude, while the mother was scaling the cliffs, — sublime was 

 the shout that echoed afar the moment she reached the 

 eyrie, — and now that her salvation was sure, the great 

 crowd rustled like a wind-swept wood. 



" And for whose sake was all this alternation of agony? 



