Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

tives to lead them into caves like this, and ponder on the verge of such a precipice. Their successors were still less likely to have wandered hither. Since the birth of this continent, I was probably the first who had deviated thus remotely from the customary paths of men.

While musing upon these ideas, my eye was fixed upon the foaming current. At length, I looked upon the rocks which confined and embarrassed its course. I admired their fantastic shapes, and endless irregularities. Passing from one to the other of these, my attention lighted, at length, as if by some magical transition, on-a human countenance.

My surprise was so abrupt, and my sensations so tumultuous, that I forgot for a moment the perilous nature of my situation. I loosened my hold of a pine branch, which had been hitherto one of my supports, and almost started from my seat. Had my station been, in a slight degree nearer the brink than it was, I should have fallen headlong into the abyss.

To meet a human creature, even on that side of the chasm which I occupied, would have been wholly adverse to my expectation. My station was accessible by no other road than that through which I had passed, and no motives were imaginable by which others could be prompted to explore this road. But he whom I now beheld, was seated where it seemed impossible for human efforts to have placed him.

But this affected me but little in comparison with other incidents. Not only the countenance was human, but in spite of shaggy and tangled locks, and an air of melancholy wildness, I speedily recognized the features of the fugitive Clithero!

One glance was not sufficient to make me acquainted with this scene. I had come hither partly in pursuit of

this man, but some casual appendage of his person, something which should indicate his past rather than his present existence, was all that I hoped to find. That he should be found alive in this desert; that he should have gained this summit, access to which was apparently impossible, were scarcely within the boundaries of belief.

His scanty and coarse garb had been nearly rent away by brambles and thorns, his arms, bosom, and cheek were overgrown and half concealed by hair. There was somewhat in his attitude and looks denoting more than anarchy of thoughts and passions. His rueful, ghastly, and immoveable eyes, testified not only that his mind was ravaged by despair, but that he was pinched with famine.

These proofs of his misery thrilled to my inmost heart. Horror and shuddering invaded me as I stood gazing upon him, and, for a time, I was without the power of deliberating on the measures which it was my duty to adopt for his relief. The first suggestion was, by calling, to inform him of my presence. I knew not what counsel or comfort to offer. By what words to bespeak his attention, or by what topics to mollify his direful passions I knew not. Though so near, the gulf by which we were separated was impassable. All that I could do was to speak.

My surprise and my horror were still strong enough to give a shrill and piercing tone to my voice. The chasm and the rocks loudened and reverberated my accents while I exclaimed-Man! Clithero!

My summons was effectual. He shook off his trance in a moment. He had been stretched upon his back, with his eyes fixed upon a craggy projecture above, as if he were in momentary expectation of its fall, and crushing him to atoms. Now he started on his feet. He was

conscious of the voice, but not of the quarter whence it He was looking anxiously around when I again spoke-Look hither: It is I who called.

came.

He looked. Astonishment was now mingled with every other dreadful meaning in his visage. He clasped his hands together and bent forward, as if to satisfy himself that his summoner was real. At the next moment he drew back, placed his hands upon his breast, and fixed his eyes on the ground.

I

This pause was not likely to be broken but by me. was preparing again to speak. To be more distinctly heard, I advanced closer to the brink. During this action, my eye was necessarily withdrawn from him. Having gained a somewhat nearer station, I looked again, buthe was gone!

6

HUNTING SONG.

BY ROBERT WALN.

'T is the break of day, and cloudless weather, The 'eager dogs are all roaming together,

The moor-cock is flitting across the heather,
Up, rouse from your slumbers,

[blocks in formation]

The wild boar is shaking his dewy bristle,
The partridge is sounding his morning whistle,
The red-deer is bounding o'er the thistle,
Up, rouse from your slumbers,

Away!

No vapor encumbers the day;

Wind the echoing horn,

For the waking morn

Peeps forth in its mantle of gray.

CHARACTER OF TILGHMAN.

BY HORACE BINNEY.

IF the reputation of the living were the only source from which the honour of our race is derived, the death of an eminent man would be a subject of immitigable grief. It is the lot of few to attain great distinction, before Death has placed them above the distorting medium, through which men are seen by their cotemporaries. It is the lot of still fewer, to attain it by qualities which exalt the character of our species. Envy denies the capacity ofs ome, slander stigmatizes the principles of others, fashion gives an occasional currency to false pretensions, and the men by whom the age is hereafter to be known, are often too much in advance of it to be discernible by the common eye. All these causes combine to reduce the stock of living reputation, as much below the real merits of the age, as it is below the proper dignity of man; and he who should wish to elevate his spirit by examples of wisdom, of genius, and of patriotism, if he could not derive them from the illustrious dead, would have better reason than the son of Philip, to weep at the limits which confined him. To part with the great and good from a world which thus wants them, and not to receive thereafter the refreshing influence of their purified and exalted fame would be to make Death almost the master of our virtue, as he appears to be of our perishable bodies. The living and dead are, however, but one

« AnteriorContinuar »