Page 296 - 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 ...

We walked out toward the bluff. The a;r tvas murky, raw, and
growing bitter cold. Eighty feci below, the waves dashed against the
rocks, pounding like some enormous sledge-hammer, with a noise [ike
distiii\t thunder, and causing the ledge under our feet tc.j vibrato with
each blow. The phosphorescent foam oil the crests of the breakers
enabled me to dimly -see the huge, angry billows tumultuously chas­
ing each other shoreward, and breaking; upon the projecting edges of
the rocky reef. Far away in the distance there was now and then
visible a tiny point, of light— of sonic vessel; so far that it would
wholly di.:iappear for awhile, and then again come into view,
“ That light is about sixty miles sway, and a steamer, likely one of
the English or French liners," he said. W e had reached near the
very edge of the bluff— as far as it was safe to go— when :tiy com­
panion pressed my arm and paused. Stretching out his arm and
pointing with his long, bony fingers, he exclaimed : "Down there, just
beyond us,— it is only eighty feet from dry land,— you see that (.lark
streak in the sea? That is the ‘ Devil's Cradle,' and is under water
at very high tide. It is called that name because the reef is -ike a set
of big saw s; the sharp rocks hold a vessel that runs on them, and
sometimes the sea has beaten and pounded and shook the wrecks,
very much as a cradle is rocked, -in til they are torn to pieces. Nine
have been lost there during my time,
" But that was not the luck of the Atlantic, which was too firmly set
in the rocks to he moved, and the waves pounded and broke her in
two, and after awhile tore her to p'-cees. .But that night set in hard.
It was cold— bitter cold— and the sun went down in the blinding
snow-storm, and the wind blew every way with a force that was awful;
then came sleet and ha.il that Out your very clothes, and drew blood
wherever it struck your fksh. A 'l the time the wind was raising and
the air was geUing 31 rore bitterly cold. Jt was so eold that the air
seemed to sting you, and the wind would whirl you around almost off
your feet ; it whistled and howled and screeched with a frightful noise,
I says to my pious old woman : < Mary Ann, it does seem its though
hell itself had been Jet loose to-night;1 and says she to me, 'Jimmy, I