[Oh! what a fall was there, my countrywomen!] Fearful were the shrieks
that rent the mountain air as he rolled down the hillside. The pail they
had carried so carefully was overturned and rent asunder, and the
trembling water spilled upon the smiling hill-side--fit emblem of their
vanishing hopes.

Down went the roley-poley boy, like a dumpling down a cellar-door;
crashing his head against the cruel rocks that stood in stony
heartedness in his way, and dashing his brains out against their hard
sides. His loving companion, eyes and month dilated with horror, stood
still and rigid, gazing upon the fearful descent, and its tragic ending,
then throwing her arms aloft, and giving a fearful shriek of agony that
thrilled with horror the hearts of the hearers--if there were any--cast
herself down in exact imitation of the fall of her hero, rolled over and
over as he did, and ended by mingling her blood with his upon the same
stones.

_His_ crown was broken diagonally; _hers_ slantindicularly; that was the
only difference. Her suicidal act is commemorated in the line,

"And GILL came tumbling after."

The catastrophe was witnessed by the assembled family, who hastened to
the bleeding victims of parental injustice, and endeavored to do all
that was possible to restore life to the mangled forms of the two who
loved when living, and in death were not divided.

But all in vain. They were dead, and not till then did the family
appreciate the beautiful, self-denying, heroic disposition of the little