Page 190 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

A n d I fought with m y foe like a trooper, but the madman was terribly
strong.
D ow n, down. I was forced to the ground, sir, and m v heart was be £ in-
■ .i v
ning to quail,
While the 1.malic grinned as he he’ d me on the dangerous up line of rail.

f could see the. rod light o f the engine as it shone through the thick,
murky gloom :
A lo n g came the i rain, and 1 shuddered as I thought: o f our terrible doom .
All at once the man noticed the light, .sir, and I landed his grasp grew
slack,
So, exerting myself, I sprang upwards, and set him right on to his back,

i had thrown him quite clear o f the metals, and I quickly avoided the
train f
Ere it. swiftly rushed over the spot, dr, where a moment ago I had lain.
11ow thankful 1 felt you may guess, sir, m y peril had not been in vain,
For in less thnn two minutes tile madman was safe with his keeper again,
Johm F. N i c h o l l s ,

T H E DRUMMER=BOY,
O to u f h t s were crossing the A lps— arid a pretty large party, too,
N E cold Decem ber morning, about eighty years ago, a party of

for there were several thousand o f them together. Som e were
o
riding, some v, aiking. and most c f them had knapsacks on their
shoulders, like many Alpine tomists now-a-days. But instead of
walking sticks, they carried muskets and bayonets, and dragged along
with them .some fifty or sixty can non.
lai fact the.se tourists wore nothing less than a French army, and
a very hard time o( it they seemed lo be having. Trying work,
certain!y, even for the strongest mail, to make four miles through knee-
deep snow ill tins bitter host and bitter wind, along these narrow y
slippery mountain paths, with precipices hundreds of feet deep all round
T h e soldiers looked thin and heavy-eyed for want o f food and sleep,