University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.
THE ICE GOES OUT.

That which Chuk looked forward to with so sad a
heart; which thousands of people up and down the valley
anticipated as the opening in the midst of their towns and
villages of a new, radiant, beautiful realm of existence;
what the travelling public were on tip-toe for, and merchants
and customers, and mill-owners and log-drivers,
were so interested in; what many a coaster from sunnier
climes was spreading all sail for, and hundreds of fond
souls, awaiting union with other fond souls, in distant
places, had almost despaired of, was at hand, — the ice began
to start. The warm weather, the dissolving snows, the
powerful rains, generously combined for this end.

All who had occasion to use the “Free Bridge,” as the
ice was called, hastened to do so. The wood-mongers got
their loads over; those who had bulky articles of any sort
to transport fidgeted lest they should be too late. One of
the last incidents was what befell a gentleman in his ardor
to avoid the odious wooden structure to which we have referred,
— he drove a valuable horse through the ice, and
drowned him. Of course, everybody said the ice must be
very rotten.

Large rocks, that had been hauled on the ice for the construction
or repairing of booms, were seen to sink. Merchandise
that had been deposited in store-houses on the
wharves was removed, against the possibility of an inundation.

The Bridge too, the reviled Bridge, with its great wooden
eyes, reposing on its immense stone piers, looked on
very quietly, — it was quiet as Helskill himself; it did not
resent the “Free Bridge,” — it did not laugh when the
horse went down, — it did not shake its head when sleighs
galloped by on the ice, and frumped at its slow walk; it
seemed to fold its arms and say, “I can bide my time.
You will perhaps sing another tune, by and by.”

These things were done, and with unacknowledged impatience
all waited for the issue.

First is the cracking of the ice. This is generally instantaneous
and universal. The rise of the water, the confluence
of the stream above with a high tide from below, produce
the effect. The entire field is on the instant traversed
with innumerable irregular lines, and divided by a rude
polyhedral fracture, and the whole mass is gently agitated.

There were many who heard the cracking, and some
who saw it, and would asseverate stoutly what time it was,
and where they stood; and knots of men and boys who
hang about the docks would get into a vociferous scuffle
because they had seen so much.

But the ice is not discharged in a minute. That lying
between the Bridge and the Dam, where the water runs
very swiftly, is first set adrift. This sails with moderation
and dignity, and stops on the piers of the Bridge, awaiting
events. It sometimes lies there three or four days. Below
the Bridge the stream expands in a broad basin, interspersed
with islands, and constitutes the Harbor. Beyond this, and
about a mile from the city, are what are called the Narrows.
These are not yet free, and the loosened ice of the Harbor,
like a fleet of boats ready to put to sea, rocks leisurely on
the current; the abraded fragments are thrown into heaps,
— the cakes careen and expose their bright edges, — the

water bubbles up in many dark fissures; boys go out and
stand on the large cakes, with their hands in their breeches
pockets, — a cool way they have of taunting the ice; some
creep to the edge of the cakes and look into the water, so
rejoiced are they to see it; some find the smallest possible
lump that will bear them, as much as to say to the ice its
reign is over; one or two get dumped into the stream, but
this only shows how near at hand is the long wished-for
crisis; some set off with billets of wood and thump on it, to
wake it up, and set it stirring.

Presently the Narrows were pronounced clear; and there,
between the dark, pine-clad hills, on a shining mirror, the
light of the sun was reflected, silvery and exultant; and an
opening of light and joy glistened in the heart of Woodylin.
Then the loosened pieces next above drifted off; they went
in shoals, platoon-like. In the afternoon another division
followed. The next morning beheld the Harbor without a
vestige of its winter bands.

At the Saw-mills these things created their wonted interest.
The water lay in a broad, level plain behind the Mills,
now turbid indeed, and beginning to seethe and surge, by
reason of the increased volume pouring over the Dam. The
hollows in the bed of the stream were filled, and the “rips”
concealed from sight. The icicles that form on the fall of
the Dam, — glacial stalactites, a columnar veil extending
nearly the whole length of the structure, — these Richard
saw give way and tumble into the stream.

But the end was not yet, — hardly the beginning. The
ice above the Dam, where the waters form a vast pond, had
not started. At the head of the pond was probably also a
jam of ice. And likewise up the River, like the locks of a
canal, rising one above another, and each having its own
level, were other dams, and ponds, and jams. On numberless

tributaries, the ice, swathed by narrow, winding
shores, stagnated in marshes and on flats, arrested also by
frequent petty dams, had made little progress. Then, quite
likely, as you approached the sources of the stream, in a
higher latitude, the waters still slumbered in their wintry
solitudes, and gave no vernal intimations whatever. So
that there were hundreds of miles of substance, solid as the
earth itself, and seeming to be a part of its rocky crust, yet
to slide off, yet to mount the creast of the Dam, to be compressed
within the piers of the Bridge, and pass through
the city.

But such a finale would require another rain, or more
heat.

Then what might happen? This: that the ice would be
choked in the Narrows, a dam extemporized, and a jam
created, having at its back these hundred miles of fluent
blocks; and that the water, indignant at this detention,
recoiling, striking on the right and left at the shores, which
it supposes to be accomplices in this attempt at subjugation,
shall engulf the lower parts of the city, deluging stores,
and barricading streets; overflow the Pebbles, and disturb
the repose of Quiet Arbor; and lifting the ponderous
Bridge from its abutments, and the strong mills from their
beds, toss them both into the torrent. Such things were
dreamed of.

But the rain, impatient at the dilatoriness of the heat, —
black in the face, swollen in its veins, — just tightened its
girdle, and began its task. For two days and two nights it
labored like a steam-pump, without once losing its wind.
It created a flood on its own behalf, independently of the
River, in barn-yards and wood-yards, in cellars and drains;
the streets were a freshet of mud.

But the eviction of the ice and freedom of the River

was its great object; and this the rain did by a gradual process
of undermining, beginning at the Bridge, and carried
on to the tips of the fingers of the tributaries, and to the
hairs of the head of the stream; insinuating itself beneath
the superincumbent mass by millions of sluices dispersed
over millions of acres of soil.

The Mills, to be technically precise, hung up; the gates
were shut; the hands scattered, — some busy on repairs,
others idly observing the course of the flood.

Richard saw the first ice flake over the Dam; then an
immense sheet, many rods square, parting in regular sections,
like snow sliding from the roof of a house, came on.
Then acres of the crystal, so long in suspense, plunged forward,
and the broad expanse of water was full of ice, —
like all the blocks of granite Quincy ever produced or ever
will produce, set suddenly afloat. Intermingled with the
seething shoal were peeled logs; trees that had been ravished
by their roots from the banks; small buildings, which the
flood picked off in passing, and the wash of all the woods
and fields. It would take twenty-four hours for the whole
to run by.

Night came on apace, and the people of Woodylin went to
bed with some degree of uncertainty as to what the morning
might disclose, inasmuch as so sudden a rise was not often
chronicled. In the middle of the night the Church-bells
rang, and the people hurried to the River. Some said it
was flowing back, and, of course, a jam was formed at the
Narrows. Lanterns gleamed; anxious voices and hurried
steps could be distinguished. The riparians must strip
their houses; destructibles must be hoisted from the basement
of the stores; the Timid Man fled to the rescue of his
bottles. The Bridge was thronged: beneath it crunched
and rumbled the burdened current; upright beams, which

the flood bore on its surface, were hurled against it, making
its own beams creak and tremble.

Where was Richard? Where he ought to be, — helping
Mr. Gouch, who lived on the shore, save his furniture.
Where was Tunny? Sweating over the hatchway of his
cellar, hoisting up potatoes and a rat-trap. Where were
Memmy and Bebby? Fast asleep in their trundle-bed.
Where was Chuk? He and Mysie were out together and
alone, in that horrible time, trying to secure his boom.
Where was the Governor's Family? Down on the Bridge.
Let us not particularize.

Up the waters came, — up with a rush, — up like a race
horse, up the landing-places, and the passages between the
stores and the end of the streets leading to the River, and
the Pebbles. There was a frightful hiss in the stream, as it
swept under the Bridge, and a melancholy roar in its fast
accumulating waters above, and the darkness of the night
was awful. People's hearts swelled as the waters did, and
were as dark as the night was. Now the ice was so high
that it struck the bottom of the Bridge, and every man's
heart seemed to be thwacked and going. Some ran as if
the Bridge was falling; others clenched themselves into
silence.

The Governor, with his hands in his side-pockets, attended
by his two oldest sons, walked leisurely across the
Bridge.

“Do you think she will stand?” said one to him. “I do
not know,” he replied; “if it goes it goes, and there is no
help for it.” The same question he was asked forty times,
and he made nearly the same answer. Did he not care?
He was a share-holder in the concern. O, it was a way he
had. But the people did care. “It rises slower,” said one.
`But it is still rising,” rejoined another. “Two inches

more, and we are gone.” It was as if their hearts would go,
in two inches more. “Horrible to think of!” they exclaimed.
“The worst thing that could happen.” “The loss of the
Bridge would ruin a whole season's business!” “What
could we do without it?”

All at once a voice might have been heard, as of the
Bridge speaking, — a voice that sounded gruff and sepulchral,
from end to end of the dark, timber-teeming vault. “Ye are
scared, ye are troubled,” it said, “sinners that ye are! How
often have ye taunted and scandalized me! How often have
ye scolded at your tolls, and abused the gate-keeper! What
conspiracies have ye hatched against me! What mutterings
have filled your streets about me! Year after year have I
listened to your complaints, and borne with your revilings.
Year after year have I aided your passage across the stream,
and received in return your ingratitude and scorn. Every
beam and rafter is witness to your maledictions; every plank
in my floor is worn with the foot of your contempt. What
will ye now, ye poltroons? Too dark, am I, for your ladies?
Too exorbitant for your poor ones? What means your consternation?”

The people were aghast.

“Ye have wished me out of the way,” the Bridge continued;
“ye have denounced me as a nuisance. Shall I
leap into the water?”

“Mercy! mercy!” cried the people.

A voice was heard from the River. “I know those fellows,”
it said. “They thought they had me under their
feet, when the ice was on, and they could cross for nothing.
They thought I was of no consequence, and grudged the
pennies they paid for getting over me. Every curse on
you, my good friend, I have felt as a slight on me. I have
not said much about it, but I have felt it. I am glad you

have spoken; I am glad the ice is broke. It was you, Mr.
Bridge, that gave me a sense of my dignity and importance.
When I saw your piers going up, and your sills laying, and
the heavy couplings entering into your superstructure, I felt
that I was something. I am getting ready a jam of ice. I
will help you off, and punish these impudent bipeds.”

“Oh! oh!” screamed the people.

“Down upon your knees, every man of you! down into
the dust ye have hated, and ask our forgiveness,” rejoined
the Bridge; “and we will see what shall be done with
you.”

While the Bridge is dealing with the malcontents, let us
follow the Governor into the streets. When he saw how
the water was rising, he bethought him of a widow that
occupied one of his houses on the margin of the Pebbles.
He hastened thither, with his sons. He found the woman
and her family up and alarmed; but the water never before,
so far as the Governor could recollect, had covered that spot.
The River had lost its recollection too, and on it came,
rushing, like a mill-tail, over the sills of the house. Roscoe
seized one child, Benjamin another, and the mother followed
with a third. The Governor set off with a bed. But the
River, though it was the Governor, and everybody reverenced
him for his wisdom, thought he might still be taught
a few things, and poured upon him breast high, and threw
in, to increase the weight of its impressions, a boulder of ice.
The Governor, never easily thrown from his balance, never
yet prostrated by adversity, clung to the branch of a tree,
and defended himself with the bed, against the ice.

Now, quicker than this pen can move, Richard was there,
and Munk, and Silver, and the gang that had been relieving
distress elsewhere, and they dashed into the water and
rescued the Governor.

Now, also, the River, having concluded terms with the
backbiters, fell off as suddenly as it had risen. Down it
went, in the twinkling of an eye; the jam had broken, and
the peril was over.

Now, also, since the suspense is ended, and we can speak
of it, it will be expected we should say that Richard was
the first to leap in after the Governor; that in his young
and athletic arms he grasped the bruised and exhausted
magnate, and bore him to dry land. Poetical justice to
Richard, and to the Governor's Family, and to the whole
scope of this book, and to the hearts of its million, polyglottal,
deeply interested readers, requires this. Well, it is so:
fact coincides with fancy, and Richard, who, by the way,
was a very accommodating youth, did just what poetic justice
and all our readers would wish him to do.

The Governor was not much hurt, — he never was; he
went home, and to bed, and all the city did the same.

The next morning the people turned out to see what had
happened, and to mangonize on what might have happened.
The ice still flowed, and the river luxuriated in the calm
magnificence of inundation. The Dam supplied the principal
attraction, and hither many came.

The water passed the crest at a height of fifteen feet
greater than its common level, and the whole structure
seemed to have suddenly mounted so many degrees. The
entire volume of water had swelled in proportion, and the
River seemed like a vast lake that had broke out within the
precincts of the city. The Dam, a thousand feet long,
poured like a Niagara in its teens. At its foot was the
rabid “boil” and terrific undertow; caverns were hollowed
out in the liquid rage; smooth arches sported over the exacerbated
surface; the spray rose soft and beautiful; jets of
sparkling crystals spurted from the dark depths beneath;

an occasional ice-plateau, like the deck of a man-of-war, was
precipitated down the fall, and borne, a shivering, scattered
wreck, across the field of view.

To Richard this scene was new, and he sat at the backdoor
of the Mill looking at it. Many gentlemen and ladies
came to the same spot, among whom were Melicent and
Barbara Dennington, their little brother, Sebastian Rasle,
and niece, Alice Weymouth. With them were Webster
Chassford and Glendar.

Now Chassford and Glendar had seen Richard a few
nights before, but they did not remember him. The Denningtons
remembered him well, and talked with him. The
River repeated its wonders every year, but the beauty and
the grandeur of the scene were continually revealing a new
shape to the minds of these ladies, and awakening fresh transports
of delight; and while the whole was comparatively
novel to Richard, they could meet him quite half way in
the enthusiasm of the hour. Water is always quickening
to the spirit of the beholder, and such water was very
quickening. They had much to say and to feel about it,
and, as it happened, their three sayings and feelings, like
the subject thereof, ran in the same channel. Glendar
dipped in his oar, and rowed with the ladies a while; finally,
so to speak, he got them into his own boat, and rowed in
another direction. Richard, with his pocket-knife, was
carving toys, out of a piece of pine, for Memmy and Bebby.
So he kept at his work, and let his boat run whither it list.
He tried to talk with Alice Weymouth, but she blushed
deeply, and said little. She was a black-eyed girl, about
twelve years old, with a quick, sensitive face; and every
time Richard looked at her, she half laughed and wholly
blushed; and, clinging to Aunt Barbara's hand, she seemed
quite unable to support conversation. Melicent did ask

what Richard was making, and he told her; and she even
dropped a question or two about the children, and he could
have answered a folio volume. But she was polite, and he
was polite; and she had other friends to listen to, and he had
no wish to inflict the children upon her.

Barbara asked Richard if he had seen the Boy, Chuk,
since Bill Stonners' death. He had not. She would like
to go and see him. So would Richard and Melicent; and
so would Chassford and Glendar. And they all started for
Bill Stonners' Point.

Rasle ran everywhere; but little Alice Weymouth kept
in the rear, and little though she was, she seemed to be
laboring with a mighty large arrision all the way up; and
every time she looked at Richard, she laughed the more;
but all to herself, all within her own thoughts. If the others
happened to look back, she coughed and blushed, and
seemed to be trying to cover up her laughter with her blushes.
What was there in Richard so provoking, or so titillating?
He wore his red shirt, and snuff-colored monkey-jacket, and
had mounted a new Rough and Ready glazed hat; but
these she ought not to laugh at. They had to cross a small
brook; and while Chassford and Glendar were attending to
the ladies, Richard would have helped her over; but she
shrank from him, — she seemed to feel as bad to have him
touch her as Tunny did to have him look at him.

They found Chuk in trouble; his guys had parted, and
his boom-sticks were broken. Richard promised to help
repair the disaster when the water fell. The Boy flung his
pole into the stream, and himself on a rock, and acted quite
desperately. “You an't Bill,” said he, “and you need n't
try to be! You can't swear as he could; and the ice never
crowded so when he was alive, and could swear!”

Melicent told him not to feel so bad. But he would feel

so bad; that was his prerogative, — it was his duty. Mysie
brought back the pole, which she went along the shore and
rescued, and gave it to him. She said, “Bill would not do
so; and I would not do so, if I was you. You can mend the
boom, and there 'll be a plenty of logs by and bye. We did
the best we could.” Mysie alone seemed to have power
over the Boy; but her power did not always prevail. Chassford
put a silver dollar into Chuk's hand; he heaved it from
him, — he flung it with sarcastic swiftness into the water.
“We did n't want money,” said he; “we wanted life; and
your father would n't give that, and he shan't give t' other.
Let the River have it! See if you can't buy up its good-will!”

The road to the Point went by Munk's; and when the
party returned, the children, who had probably already
espied them from the kitchen window, stood on the front
door-step, jiggling, and hooting, and clapping their hands;
and before Richard could get to them, Bebby had backed
half way down the steps. Their uncle took them both in
his arms, and turned towards the ladies. These were
Memmy and Bebby! these were the lords paramount of that
mighty dom! He did not say so, but the fact was so. Melicent
dotted one, with her smooth kid-gloved finger, on
the cheek; Barbara chucked the other under its chin.
Alice Weymouth — the tyke! — laughed outright. It was
all day with her; she began to splurt, and had to let it go.
And the children laughed too; this was a god-send for
Alice, since it put her own laughter into countenance, and
she could go ahead without restraint; and she laughed
herself high and dry. Indeed, they all seemed to have a
merry minute, till Mrs. Munk appeared in the door, calling
after the children, and reproving them for being out, and
saying they would certainly catch their death of a cold to
be there without their hoods on.

Alice Weymouth laughed no more till she reached home.
But when the Family were sitting at dinner, she began
again, or rather the imp inside of her began again; she
herself blushed, — she tried to drown the imp with a glass of
water. But it was n't to be drowned; it dashed back the
water, — it scattered it over the table. “Why, Alice Weymouth!”
said Madam. “The child is choking!” exclaimed
Mrs. Melbourne. Cousin Rowena had already begun to
bite her lip, a sign of suppressed emotion; not that she knew
of anything to laugh at, but only out of an unconscious sympathy
of joyous feeling. “It is nothing,” said Alice Weymouth,
rather in reply to Mrs. Melbourne than anybody
else. “You should not drink so fast,” said Madam, quietly.
The more attention was drawn to the child, the worse
she acted; if she had been alone, she would have got through
with it well enough. “Why don't you speak, if you have
anything to say?” asked Roscoe. “It is nothing,” she
said, “only I saw Richard Edney.” “So did I,” sang out
Rasle. Miss Rowena laughed outright, now; in fact, they
all laughed. “He did n't hurt you, did he?” inquired
Cousin. “I was only thinking,” replied the child, “it was
he that scared us so on the Bridge, that he was the one that
stopped the horse when Aunt Melicent like to have been run
away with, and that he dragged Grandpa out of the water
last night. I did n't mean to laugh, but I could n't help it.”
It was out now, and the child was easier. “Nothing to
laugh at, I am sure,” said Mrs. Melbourne. “You are at
leisure to attend to other matters,” added Madam; “will
you have some cranberry?” “How did he look?” asked
Miss Rowena. “He is real good-looking,” replied the child.
“He has an intelligent look, and a noble bearing,” observed
Barbara. “He looks the same as anybody looks, out of his
eyes,” added Rasle, who had the reputation of being a

smart boy. “I do not know how he looks,” said the Governor,
“but he carries a pair of stout arms. — Let me give
you a thin slice of beef, Mrs. Melbourne.”

“It was so funny,” pursued Alice Weymouth, “to see him
talking with Aunt Melicent and Aunt Barbara, and to see him
try to help them over the brook, with his queer hat on, and
his red shirt!” “Where have you been? what has been
doing?” asked Madam, rather quick, rather nervously.
“We went up to Bill Stonners',” responded the child, “to
see what had become of his Boy.” “This Richard Edney,”
said Madam, “must be a good youth,” — here she laid down
her knife, unconsciously, — “a very good youth,” — her fork
dropped, — “and you should not laugh at goodness, Alice
Weymouth; nor you, Rasle.” “I did n't, Mother,” replied
the boy, “and I shan't be likely to laugh at anything again
very soon, with this pickled pepper in my mouth. I wish
peppers was sweet.” Madam stirred her tea, and looked at
her spoon, — she had tea at dinner. “Goodness,” she continued,
“is too rare in this world to be treated disrespectfully
when it does come.” “I will try not to laugh, next
time,” replied Alice Weymouth.

So fared Richard in the Governor's Family, to-day.

He, in the mean time, had displayed his toys to Memmy
and Bebby, and I guess they laughed as hard as Alice Weymouth
did. He had made them a little wagon, and a little
old man that he called Uncle Squib, and a very little chub
of a baby that he called Tuckey, to sit in it; and the way
Uncle Squib and Tuckey were whisked across the room was
a caution to rail-roads, to say nothing of Winkle, and the
four best horses in his team.

If we wish to run a further parallel between the heroic
elements of our book, we should say, that at the precise
instant Melicent and Barbara were setting back the table in

their dining-room, Richard was helping his sister, Roxy,
with the same office in her kitchen, and that the two tables
struck the wall together.

As Richard returned from the Mill at night, Clover
walked on with him. “Fine girls, those Governor's daughters,”
said the latter. “Chassford is engaged to one of
them, and Glendar expects the other.” Richard made no
reply.

Richard was more thoughtful than usual after tea that
night. The children were rampant as ever, but he did
not seem to notice them. He had been in the habit of
rocking Bebby to sleep in his arms. She climbed into his
lap, — she lay on one shoulder, then tried the other; nothing
suited her. She pointed to his pocket for his handkerchief,
with which he sometimes cushioned her head; then she
pointed to the mantel-piece for the match-box, which she
was wont to go to sleep upon, holding it in her hands; but
he did not attend to her; — she pulled his lips for him to
tell her a story; he did not answer; then she cried.
“She wants you to tell her a story,” said Memmy. Her
mother took the child away. “You are getting her into
very bad habits,” she said. “They are always wanting
things, and you get them.” She pacified the child, and put
it to bed.

But Richard kept on thinking. Munk was smoking and
reading, his sister was sewing, and he thought. His
thoughts went down into the neighborhood of his feelings,
and his feelings, like fishes about a ship, kept edging about
his thoughts. He feared Chassford and Glendar were bad
men. He believed the Governor's daughters were the best
of human beings. At least, if he never imagined so much
before, it seemed to him so now. Set off against bad men,
they appeared to him good, very good indeed. The contrast

brought them into strong relief, — their goodness took a
most palpable, glorious form to his eye. And this got down
into his heart as a sort of divine impression, — a something
that stirred his deepest reverence, — and he could
almost worship it.

At the same hour, while Richard sat by the stove at
Munk's in a sort of brown study, Chassford and Glendar
were making a call at the Governor's. “That fellow,” said
Glendar, alluding to Richard, “has an off-hand way, rather
uncommon among his class.” “He has true courtesy,” replied
Melicent; “the transparency of a gentle heart through
a gentle demeanor.” “He is a strong man,” observed Roscoe,
“a very strong man.” “Melicent and your father can
judge best about that,” added Madam, looking very sharply
at a needle she was trying to thread in the light of the
candle. “I mean,” added her son, “he is very strong every
way.” “His demonstration at the Abolition meeting was
rather weak, — rather a failure,” answered Chassford. “It
was superb, — perfectly ecstatic!” exclaimed Barbara.