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, not far off 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 pieee 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 t 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 baby 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 creature. 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 
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 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? 
