As M. Moreau de Johnes was riding through a wood in Martinique some years since, his horse reared and exhibited the greatest degree of alarm, trembling in every limb with fear. On looking around to discover the cause of the animal’s terror, he observed a serpent, called fer de lance, standing erect in a bush of bamboo, and he heard it hiss several times.
He would have fired at it with his pistol, but his horse became quite unmanageable, and drew back as quickly as possible, keeping his eyes fixed on the snake. M. de Johnes, on looking around for some person to hold his horse so that he might destroy the viper, beheld a negro, streaming with blood, cutting with a blunt knife the flesh from a wound which the serpent had just inflicted.
The negro entreated M. de Johnes not to destroy it, as he wished to take the animal alive, to effect a cure on himself, according to a superstitious belief; and this M. de Johnes allowed him to do.
Varieties.
Little Chimney-Sweeper.—About three o’clock, one cold, dark, damp day, at the end of December, I met a little chimney-sweeper in England, who had come with his father that morning from a town eight miles off, to sweep the various chimneys about. He was nearly ten years old.
“Do you go home to-night, my little fellow? Where is your father?” “He went forward to the village of D——, and I am to follow.” “Are you afraid to go?” “No, I don’t feel afraid.” “I hope you are a good boy and don’t swear—do you say your prayers?” “Yes, always, every night and morning.” “Do you like sweeping chimneys?” “As to that, I don’t think any one could like it much; but there are nine children of us, and we two eldest boys must help father; and mother is good, and gets us breakfast early; and father is good to us, and we do pretty well.” “Do you go to Sunday school?” “Some of us always go.” Here ended our conversation.
About four o’clock a message came, “May the chimney-sweeper’s boy sleep here?—he cries, and says it is so wet and dark.” After a minute’s thought, we replied, “Yes, if he is willing to be locked up in the stable till morning.” With this he was well content; and after a clean bed of straw was made, he seemed delighted with his new quarters.
After the key had been turned a few minutes, an old servant coming by heard a voice—a steady, pleading voice; and on listening, she heard the child distinctly repeating collect after collect, and various church prayers. She went round, and looking in, saw our poor boy, kneeling by his bed of straw, with his hands clasped, and praying very earnestly. She said, “The tears came in my eyes as I watched the little fellow, and to see him rise from his knees, and so happily lay himself down to sleep.”
In the morning, they watched the child, when he repeated just the same before he left the stable. Upon coming out, the servants asked him, “Who taught you to say your prayers as you do?” “Mother,” he replied. “Then your mother’s a good scholar?” “No, she can’t read a word—none in our house can read.” “How then did she learn all these prayers?”
“Mother goes to church every Sunday, and says them after the parson, and so she learns them; and every night we all kneel round her that are old enough to speak, before she puts us to bed, and she says them first, bit by bit, and we all say them after her; and sometimes she learns a new one, and then she teaches us that. She tells us always to say our prayers when we are away from her, and so I do.”