Nature's Serial Story Part 16

"Well," said his father, contentedly, "I read much in the papers and magazines of theories and isms of which I never heard when I was young, but eighty years of experience have convinced me that the Lord reigns."

They all laughed at this customary settlement of knotty problems, on the part of the old gentleman, and Burt, rising from the table, looked out, with the remark that the prospects were that "the Lord would rain heavily that afternoon." The oldest and most infallible weather-prophet in the region--Storm King--was certainly giving portentous indications of a storm of no ordinary dimensions. The vapor was pouring over its summit in Niagara-like volume, and the wind, no longer rus.h.i.+ng with its recent boisterous roar, was moaning and sighing as if nature was in pain and trouble. The barometer, which had been low for two days, sank lower; the temperature rose as the gale veered to the eastward. This fact, and the moisture laden atmosphere, indicated that it came from the Gulf Stream region of the Atlantic. The rain, which began with a fine drizzle, increased fast, and soon fell in blinding sheets. The day grew dusky early, and the twilight was brief and obscure; then followed a long night of Egyptian darkness, through which the storm rushed, warred, and splashed with increasing vehemence. Before the evening was over, the sound of tumultuously flowing water became an appreciable element in the uproar without, and Webb, opening a window on the sheltered side of the house, called Amy to hear the torrents pouring down the sides of Storm King.

"What tremendous alternations of mood Nature indulges in!" she said, as she came s.h.i.+vering back to the fire. "Contrast such a night with a sunny June day."

"It would seem as if 'mild, ethereal spring' had got her back up," Burt remarked, "and regarding the return of winter as a trespa.s.s, had taken him by the throat, determined to have it out once for all. Something will give way before morning, probably half our bridges."

"Well, that _is_ a way of explaining the jar among the elements that I had not thought of," she said, laughing.

"You needn't think Webb can do all the explaining. I have my theories also--sounder than his, too, most of 'em."

"There is surely no lack of sound accompanying your theory to-night.

Indeed, it is not all 'sound and fury!'"

"It's all the more impressive, then. What's the use of your delicate, weak-backed theories that require a score of centuries to substantiate them?"

"Your theory about the bridges will soon be settled," remarked Leonard, ominously, "and I fear it will prove correct. At this rate the town will have to pay for half a dozen new ones--bridges, I mean."

"Well amended," added Webb.

"Just hear the rain!" said Leonard, ruefully. There was a heavy body of snow still in the mountains and on northern slopes, and much ice on the streams and ponds. "There certainly will be no little trouble if this continues."

"Don't worry, children," said Mr. Clifford, quietly. "I have generally found everything standing after the storms were over."

CHAPTER XIX

WINTER'S EXIT

The old house seemed so full of strange sounds that Amy found it impossible to sleep. Seasoned as were its timbers, they creaked and groaned, and the cas.e.m.e.nts rattled as if giant hands were seeking to open them. The wind at times would sigh and sob so mournfully, like a human voice, that her imagination peopled the darkness with strange creatures in distress, and then she would shudder as a more violent gust raised the prolonged wail into a loud shriek. Thoughts of her dead father--not the resigned, peaceful thoughts which the knowledge of his rest had brought of late--came surging into her mind. Her organization was peculiarly fine and especially sensitive to excited atmospherical conditions, and the tumult of the night raised in her mind an irrepressible, although unreasoning, panic. At last she felt that she would scream if she remained alone any longer. She put on her wrapper, purposing to ask Mrs.

Leonard to come and stay with her for a time, feeling a.s.sured that if she could only speak to some one, the horrid spell of nervous fear would be broken. As she stepped into the hall she saw a light gleaming from the open door of the sitting-room, and in the hope that some one was still up, she stole noiselessly down the stairway to a point that commanded a view of the apartment. Only Webb was there, and he sat quietly reading by the shaded lamp and flickering fire. The scene and his very att.i.tude suggested calmness and safety. There was nothing to be afraid of, and he was not afraid. With every moment that she watched him the nervous agitation pa.s.sed from mind and body. His strong, intent profile proved that he was occupied wholly with the thought of his author. The quiet deliberation with which he turned the leaves was more potent than soothing words. "I wouldn't for the world have him know I'm so weak and foolish," she said to herself, as she crept noiselessly back to her room.

"He little dreamed who was watching him," she whispered, smilingly, as she dropped asleep.

When she waked next morning the rain had ceased, the wind blew in fitful gusts, and the sky was still covered with wildly hurrying clouds that seemed like the straggling rearguard which the storm had left behind. So far as she could see from her window, everything was still standing, as Mr. Clifford had said. Familiar objects greeted her rea.s.suringly, and never before had the light even of a lowering morning seemed more blessed in contrast with the black, black night. As she recalled the incidents of that night--her nervous panic, and the scene which had brought quiet and peace--she smiled again, and, it must be admitted, blushed slightly. "I wonder if he affects others as he does me," she thought. "Papa used to say, when I was a little thing, that I was just a bundle of nerves, but when Webb is near I am not conscious I ever had a nerve."

Every little brook had become a torrent; Moodna Creek was reported to be in angry mood, and the family hastened through breakfast that they might drive out to see the floods and the possible devastation. Several bridges over the smaller streams had barely escaped, and the Idlewild brook, whose spring and summer music the poet Willis had caused to be heard even in other lands, now gave forth a hoa.r.s.e roar from the deep glen through which it raved. An iron bridge over the Moodna, on the depot road, had evidently been in danger in the night. The ice had been piled up in the road at each end of the bridge, and a cottage a little above it was surrounded by huge cakes. The inmates had realized their danger, for part of their furniture had been carried to higher ground. Although the volume of water pa.s.sing was still immense, all danger was now over. As they were looking at the evidences of the violent breaking up of winter, the first phoebe-bird of the season alighted in a tree overhanging the torrent, and in her plaintive notes seemed to say, as interpreted by John Burroughs, "If you please, spring has come." They gave the brown little harbinger such an enthusiastic welcome that she speedily took flight to the further sh.o.r.e.

"Where was that wee bit of life last night?" said Webb; "and how could it keep up heart?"

"Possibly it looked in at a window and saw some one reading," thought Amy; and she smiled so sweetly at the conceit that Webb asked, "How many pennies will you take for your thoughts?"

"They are not in the market;" and she laughed outright as she turned away.

"The true place to witness the flood will be at the old red bridge further down the stream," said Leonard; and they drove as rapidly as the bad wheeling permitted to that point, and found that Leonard was right.

Just above the bridge was a stone dam, by which the water was backed up a long distance, and a precipitous wooded bank rose on the south side. This had s.h.i.+elded the ice from the sun, and it was still very thick when the pressure of the flood came upon it. Up to this time it had not given way, and had become the cause of an ice-gorge that every moment grew more threatening. The impeded torrent chafed and ground the cakes together, surging them up at one point and permitting them to sink at another, as the imprisoned waters struggled for an outlet. The solid ice still held near the edge of the dam, although it was beginning to lift and crack with the tawny flood pouring over, under, and around it.

"Suppose we cross to the other side, nearest home," said Burt, who was driving; and with the word he whipped up the horses and dashed through the old covered structure.

"You ought not to have done that, Burt," said Webb, almost sternly. "The gorge may give way at any moment, and the bridge will probably go with it. We shall now have to drive several hundred yards to a safe place to leave the horses, for the low ground on this side will probably be flooded."

"It certainly will be," added Leonard.

"Oh, make haste!" cried Amy; and they all noticed that she was trembling.

But a few minutes sufficed to tie the horses and return to a point of safety near the bridge. "I did not mean to expose you to the slightest danger," Burt whispered, tenderly, to Amy. "See, the bridge is safe enough, and we might drive over it again."

Even as he spoke there was a long grinding, crunching sound. A great volume of black water had forced its way under the gorge, and now lifted it bodily over the dam. It sank in a chaotic ma.s.s, surged onward and upward again, struck the bridge, and in a moment lifted it from its foundations and swept it away, a shattered wreck, the red covering showing in the distance like ensanguined stains among the tossing cakes of ice.

They all drew a long breath, and Amy was as pale as if she had witnessed the destruction of some living creature. No doubt she realized what would have been their fate had the break occurred while they were crossing.

"Good-by, old bridge," said Leonard, pensively. "I played and fished under you when a boy, and in the friendly dusk of its cover I kissed Maggie one summer afternoon of our courting days--"

"Well, well," exclaimed Burt, "the old bridge's exit has been a moving object in every sense, since it has evoked such a flood of sentiment from Len. Let us take him home to Maggie at once."

As they were about to depart they saw Dr. Marvin driving down to the opposite side, and they mockingly beckoned him to cross the raging torrent. He shook his head ruefully, and returned up the hill again. A rapid drive through the Moodna Valley brought them to the second bridge, which would evidently escape, for the flats above it were covered with _debris_ and ice, and the main channel was sufficiently clear to permit the flood to pa.s.s harmlessly on. They then took the river road homeward.

The bridge over the Idlewild brook, near its entrance into the Moodna, was safe, although it had a narrow graze. They also found that the ice in the river at the mouth of the creek had been broken up in a wide semicircle, and as they ascended a hill that commanded an extensive view of Newburgh Bay they saw that the ice remaining had a black, sodden appearance.

"It will all break up in a few hours," said Burt, "and then hurrah for duck-shooting!"

Although spring had made such a desperate onset the previous night, it seemed to have gained but a partial advantage over winter. The weather continued raw and bl.u.s.tering for several days, and the overcast sky permitted but chance and watery gleams of suns.h.i.+ne. Slush and mud completed the ideal of the worst phase of March. The surface of the earth had apparently returned to that period before the dry land was made to appear. As the frost came out of the open s.p.a.ces of the garden, plowed fields, and even the country roads, they became quagmires in which one sank indefinitely. Seeing the vast advantage afforded to the men-folk by rubber boots, Amy provided herself with a pair, and with something of the exultation of the ancient Hebrews pa.s.sed dry-shod through the general moisture.

CHAPTER XX

A ROYAL CAPTIVE

In the midst of this dreary transition period Nature gave proof that she has unlimited materials of beauty at her command at any time. Early one afternoon the brothers were driven in from their outdoor labors by a cold, sleety rain, and Leonard predicted an ice-storm. The next morning the world appeared as if heavily plated with silver. The sun at last was unclouded, and as he looked over the top of Storm King his long-missed beams transformed the landscape into a scene of wonder and beauty beyond anything described in Johnnie's fairy tales. Trees, shrubs, the roofs and sidings of the buildings, the wooden and even the stone fences, the spires of dead gra.s.s, and the unsightly skeletons of weeds, were all incased in ice and touched by the magic wand of beauty. The mountain-tops, however, surpa.s.sed all other objects in the transfigured world, for upon them a heavy mist had rested and frozen, clothing every branch and spray with a feathery frost-work of crystals, which, in the sun-lighted distance, was like a great shock of silver hair. There were drawbacks, however, to this marvellous scene. There were not a few branches already broken from the trees, and Mr. Clifford said that if the wind rose the weight of the ice would cause great destruction. They all hastened through breakfast, Leonard and Webb that they might relieve the more valuable fruit and evergreen trees of the weight of ice, and Burt and Amy for a drive up the mountain.

As they slowly ascended, the scene under the increasing sunlight took on every moment more strange and magical effects. The ice-incased twigs and boughs acted as prisms, and reflected every hue of the rainbow, and as they approached the summit the feathery frost-work grew more and more exquisitely delicate and beautiful, and yet it was proving to be as evanescent as a dream, for in all sunny place it was already vanis.h.i.+ng.

They had scarcely pa.s.sed beyond the second summit when Burt uttered an exclamation of regretful disgust. "By all that's unlucky," he cried, "if there isn't an eagle sitting on yonder ledge! I could kill him with bird-shot, and I haven't even a popgun with me."

"It's too bad," sympathized Amy. "Let us drive as near as we can, and get a good view before he flies."

To their great surprise, he did not move as they approached, but only glared at them with his savage eye.

"Well," said Burt, "after trying for hours to get within rifle range, this exceeds anything I ever saw. I wonder if he is wounded and cannot fly." Suddenly he sprang out, and took a strap from the harness. "Hold the horse, Amy. I think I know what is the trouble with his majesty, and we may be able to return with a royal captive."

He drew near the eagle slowly and warily, and soon perceived that he was incased in ice from head to foot, and only retained the power of slightly moving his head. The creature was completely helpless, and must remain so until his icy fetters thawed out. His wings were frozen to his sides, his legs covered with ice, as were also his talons, and the dead branch of a low pine on which he had perched hours before. Icicles hung around him, making a most fantastic fringe. Only his defiant eye and open beak could give expression to his untamed, undaunted spirit. It was evident that the bird made a fierce internal struggle to escape, but was held as in a vise.

Burt was so elated that his hand trembled with eagerness; but he resolved to act prudently, and grasping the bird firmly but gently by the neck, he succeeded in severing the branch upon which the eagle was perched, for it was his purpose to exhibit the bird just as he had found him. Having carefully carried his prize to the buggy, he induced Amy, who viewed the creature with mingled wonder and alarm, to receive this strange addition to their number for the homeward journey. He wrapped her so completely with the carriage robe that the eagle could not injure her with his beak, and she saw he could no more move in other respects than a block of ice.

As an additional precaution, Burt pa.s.sed the strap around the bird's neck and tied him to the dash-board. Even with his heavy gloves he had to act cautiously, for the eagle in his disabled state could still strike a powerful blow. Then, with an exultation beyond all words, he drove to Dr.

Marvin's, in order to have one of the "loudest crows" over him that he had ever enjoyed. The doctor did not mind the "crow" in the least, but was delighted with the adventure and capture, for the whole affair had just the flavor to please him. As he was a skilful taxidermist, he good-naturedly promised to "set the eagle up" on the selfsame branch on which he had been found, for it was agreed that he would prove too dangerous a pet to keep in the vicinity of the irrepressible little Ned.