 | XXXVI.
THE INUNDATION. Neighbor Jackwood |  |
36. XXXVI.
THE INUNDATION.
It was about an hour after Mr. Jackwood's departure from the
stack, that Charlotte had observed a change in the storm. The
wind went down, and the rain, which had all the evening kept up
an incessant pelting and dripping, began to pour in torrents.
Every other sound was lost in its wild rush and roar. It fell
in this way for hours; until her spirit, lulled by the solemn
monotony, forgot its pains, and sank into the oblivion of sleep.
She was aroused by startling sounds in the night. She crept
to the opening of her retreat, and looked out. The intense darkness
had given place to a faint grayish glimmer in the sky; but it
was raining still, although less violently than before. The sounds
were repeated.
“Ho, ho! ho, ho!” Two strange, prolonged, inhuman cries!
Then Charlotte heard footsteps plashing in the water which covered
the meadow, and caught a momentary glimpse of a dim,
ghost-like figure moving by the stack. It passed from sight; and
the plashing of footsteps became lost in the spattering and bubbling
of the rain. Then again, at a distance, after a long pause,
the shouts arose, and died away in a long, plaintive, desolate wail.
“Ho, ho! Ho, ho — o — o — o!”
Faint echoes came from the sullen hills; and the rainy silence
followed. Charlotte felt an unaccountable impulse to leave her
retreat, and go wandering up and down in the night and storm,
uttering her soul in cries, like the mysterious being that had
passed. Her sufferings of body and mind had sent the flame of
fever into her blood, and in her sleep a light delirium had surprised
her brain.
“Ho, ho! Ho, ho — o — o — o!” sounded the cries again,
fainter, and further off, in the night.
She climbed over the wet hay at the mouth of the close and
heated cell, and reached forth her hand towards the ground. It
was plunged to the wrist in an icy pool. The cold storm beat
upon her face and neck. Chilled by the shock, she withdrew
beneath the shelter, and tried once more to sleep. But the
air was stifling; her flesh burned with the fever; her temples
ached with dull, heavy pains. In the anguish and despair of her
state, she threw herself once more upon the wet hay, moaning,
with face and arms and breast exposed to the rain. The bath
revived her. Again raising herself upon her arm, she perceived
that her hair was dripping wet. It had been drenched in the
pool. She put out her hand again, and discovered, to her consternation,
that the water was rising round the stack, and creeping,
creeping, slowly and steadily, into her retreat.
Her consciousness was now fully restored. She held her breath,
listening intently, and gazing out into the darkness. The gale
had risen again; the storm lashed the stack; and all around, the
rain gurgled and murmured. For some time she had been half
conscious of hearing a faint roar in the distance. It approached,
and grew distinct; and now her mind was alert to comprehend the
mysterious noise. It seemed at first like a mighty wind, pouring
through forests of reeling and crashing trees. Sharp and clear
reports, like thunder-claps, were mingled with the roar. But the
noise came from up the valley, where there were no woods; and
the peals cracked and echoed along the ground.
Then it seemed as though an earthquake were driving its plough,
with whirlwind and thunder, through the valley. Nearer and
nearer came the din. Charlotte stood out in the storm, and,
clinging to the fence, she beheld a glimmer and a flash, as of rolling
snow and foam. It came down the valley, in the track of the
riving thunder. And now the sounds resolved themselves into the
splitting and crashing of ice, and the impetuous rush of waters.
The creek was breaking up, and a flood was inundating the valley!
The convulsion passed; the din and detonation echoed down the
stream; but already the stack was surrounded by billows. They
feet, as she endeavored to climb beyond their reach. The flood
rose rapidly; the fence was low; and, in the extremity of fear,
Charlotte got upon the shed. The sheep were beneath, bleating
piteously, and swimming around the stack. The steers had run
out frantically, at the approach of the inundation; and now, as the
ingulfing waves overtook them, their bellowings of brute terror
sounded dismally above the roar.
All this had passed in a brief space of time; and now Charlotte
found herself alone upon a frail and insecure structure, in
the midst of a wilderness of waters. Masses and fragments of ice
and snow went drifting by in the night. Some of these struck the
posts that supported the shed, and made it tremble and creak beneath
her weight. The fence, meanwhile, went to pieces, the rails
floating off, one by one, in the current.
And now all the stories Charlotte had heard of freshets in the
valley, that came sweeping away bridges, and flocks, and herds,
recurred to her imagination with exaggerated terrors. She remembered
that Mr. Jackwood had related many of these, always
boasting that, thanks to his superior forethought, he had never yet
lost either horse, or horned-beast, or sheep. Why had he, who
was so versed in signs and changes of the weather, forgotten himself
upon that night, of all nights, and left her there to perish?
Up to this hour she had been dumb; but now the fear and delirium
of her soul found expression in a long, piercing cry.
A burst of wild laughter answered from the stream. She gazed
in the direction of the shout, and perceived a dark shape drifting
by upon a cake of ice. With a shudder of horror she remembered
the cries she had previously heard, and leaned forward
eagerly to watch the floating mass.
“Hurra! hurra!” shouted the mysterious being, as if he had
been the demon of the flood.
“Edward!” shrieked Charlotte.
The shape rose up to the stature of a man, dimly discerned in
the darkness, and began to leap, with grotesque gestures, upon
the ice.
“Edward! Edward!” implored Charlotte.
He reached forth his arms; a cry of recognition, of joy, came
from the flood. But suddenly there was a dull explosion, the ice
went asunder, and the shape disappeared amid the agitated fragments.
Two or three strangled cries, a little bubbling and splashing;
then the waters swept on, and the ice drifted away in the
darkness.
Aroused by the sounds in the valley, Mr. Jackwood rushed out,
Dickson still keeping doggedly by his side. Abimelech followed,
buttoning his jacket by the way.
“Give us a helpin' hand!” shouted the farmer, throwing open
the barn-doors. He seized the boat, that was housed there for the
winter, and dragged it from its place. “To the crick!”
“If it 's for that gal,” cried Dickson, “say the word, and I 'm
yer man!”
“Stand away!” said the farmer, through his teeth; and alone,
by main force, he dragged the boat to the bank. “Bring a pail
or suthin, Bim'lech! Where 's the oars?” The oars were found;
Abimelech came running with a dipper to bail with; Mrs. Jackwood
brought the lantern; and the boat was launched in the
sweeping current. “Git in, Bim'lech!”
“The ol' thing 'll leak like a siv!” said the boy, as he scrambled
aboard.
Mr. Jackwood was about to follow, when Dickson stepped in
before him.
“Git out o' there!” exclaimed the farmer, fiercely.
Dickson possessed himself of the oars. “I reck'n 't 'll be as
well for me to keep you company; I feel an interest in that gal.”
“You 've done enough for her, and for us, too! Will ye git
out? We 're goin' to pick up the drowndin' sheep, an' there won't
be room!”
“I 'll help as much as I 'll hender, I reck'n!” retorted Dickson,
— and the lantern shining upon his face showed it dark and
determined. “Come on. I 'm a powerful hand at the oars.”
Mr. Jackwood glanced around. Had his eye fallen upon any
sort of weapon, the impulse that prompted him to knock the villain
into the water would have led to a struggle. He hesitated
And the swift thought flashed through his brain, that, in case of
her rescue, it would still be time to deliver her, by desperate
means, from the hands of the kidnapper.
“Gi' me the lantern!” and, taking it from the hands of his
anxious wife, he stepped aboard, and shoved clear of the bank.
“That 's the wisest thing you could do,” growled Dickson.
“It 'll be jest my cussed luck, if that gal 's drownded! I 'm certain
I heard yells off in this direction. But I 'll have the wuth of
her out o' somebody, — you may make sure o' that!”
“She might git on the cattle-shed,” said the frightened Bim.
“Look a' here, boy! was she hid anywheres about that stack?
I 've had that in my mind ever since I quit it; and I 'm mad,
now, that it did n't burn up!”
“Give me an oar!” said Mr. Jackwood.
“You 'tend to your steerin'!” answered Dickson. He plied
the oars vigorously with his powerful arms. Mr. Jackwood sat
in the stern, and steered out upon the dark and whirling flood.
Abimelech, in the bow, held the light. At first the current carried
the boat rapidly down stream; but, having crossed the channel
of the creek, they came upon the comparatively still sheet of
water that overspread the meadows.
“Bim'lech,” said Mr. Jackwood, “hold up the lantern as high
as you can reach!”
The boy placed it on his head, and stood up in the bow; the
light shining round upon the gloomy waves.
“Sit down! you 'll fall!” cried his father.
“No, I won't!” said Bim, grasping the lantern with both
hands. “O-o-o-o! see that big junk o' ice!”
“How fur be we from the stack?” asked Dickson.
“Hold your oars a minute!” cried the farmer. “I don'no
'xac'ly where we be.”
“There 's the old elm!” cried Abimelech. “An' there 's the
knoll beyend!”
“Are you sure on 't?” — Mr. Jackwood strained his eyes in
the darkness. — “I guess you 're right. Go ahead.”
Dickson had taken advantage of the pause, to sound the water
astonishment.
“It 's high ground here,” said the farmer. “It 's lower where
the stack stands.”
“Your valley, tucked in here 'twixt the mountains,” observed
Dickson, pulling again at the oars, “is like the bottom of an
almighty big tunn'l, with the crick for the spout. Any man
that 's used to the country should 'ave knowed better than to leave
even a dumb beast down here in sech a storm.”
Already Mr. Jackwood was suffering unspeakable trouble of
mind on Charlotte's account; and a reproach from such a source
filled his hot heart to choking fulness.
“Who 'd a' knowed,” cried Bim, “'t was goin' to rain so like
gre't guns? See, father! it 's turnin' round cold, jest as you said
't would! The rain 's more 'n half snow, now!”
“Be still, Bim'lech!” said the farmer, in a hoarse voice.
“Hello!” ejaculated the boy, “there 's the fence. There 's
only jest the top-board and the ends o' the posts out o' the water.
O-o-o-o! a little more, an' you 'd smashed right into it!”
To pass the fence, it was necessary to drop down once more
towards the channel of the creek. They had not proceeded far
when they found the boards torn away, and the posts broken
down. It was at the spot where the crushing mass of ice, arrived
at a bend in the stream, had overswept the banks, and rushed
down towards the stack. As they passed the fence, Dickson
rested on his oars, and shouted. No reply.
“I thought I heard a sheep bl'at,” said Bim. “Father! look
out for them bushes!”
“Pull away!” cried the farmer.
“I heard somethin',” Dickson declared. “The stack can't be
fur off, now.”
“There!” exclaimed Abimelech; “that was a sheep! It
bl'ated agin! I see the stack!”
“Your eyes are better 'n mine,” said Dickson, glancing over his
shoulder. “I see somethin', though, out there in the dark.”
“Why don't she answer, I wonder? If she 's on the shed, I
should think she'd see the light, and call us,” said Bim.
“Jest my luck!” growled Dickson. “It makes me mad to lose
a gal that way!”
“Keep your light out o' my eyes!” cried Mr. Jackwood, as,
gazing over the bow, he stared in the direction of the gloomy
mass.
“Had n't I better be bailin' a little?” asked Abimelech, frightened.
“The boat 's 'most half full o' water!”
“Hold your lantern!” said his father, sternly. A yellow glimmer
of light touched the stack. The shed was not yet visible.
“We 're on the wrong side!” said Bim. “How did that happen?
— O! see them sheep!”
The boat passed the stack, and came around under its lee. By
the light of the lantern, a number of sheep could now be seen
huddling together in the eddies, and holding their noses above
water against the side of the stack. As the boat approached,
one of them was seen to lose its hold, and, after a struggle to
regain it, fall into the current and disappear. It passed within
reach of Mr. Jackwood's hand, but his eyes were fixed elsewhere.
“Where is your shed, — I 'd like to know?” demanded Dickson.
“O!” exclaimed Abimelech, — “father, see! it 's gone! the
shed is gone!”
Mr. Jackwood sprang up in the boat, thrust his feet in the
notches left by the roof of the shed, and mounted the stack. It
was his last hope. But no Charlotte was there. Only her shawl,
which he found freezing fast to a board, against which it had
blown, remained as a memento of the night of terror she had
passed in that fearful spot.
Dickson was not satisfied with Mr. Jackwood's examination.
“Here, boy!” said he, “give me the lantern, and take this oar.
Hold it so-fash'n, and keep the boat up against the stack.”
Abimelech obeyed, and Dickson mounted the stack, after the
farmer, lantern in hand.
“O!” screamed the boy, “the boat 's goin' off, and I can't
help it! Father! come!”
Mr. Jackwood was gazing around upon the waste of waters, in
a state of stupefaction, when Abimelech's cries aroused him.
“Reach me the eend o' the oar!” he exclaimed, springing to
the side of the stack.
“O! quick!” cried the boy, “hold the lantern, you man!”
“I 've got ye!” said Mr. Jackwood. “Keep tight holt!”
And he drew the boat alongside.
“Why did n't ye do as I told ye?” growled Dickson. “The
curr'nt pushed the boat against the stack, and all you had to do
was to keep the bow from swinging round. Are ye a fool?”
“Darn that man!” said Bim. “I wish he was drownded!”
“Hush, Bim'lech!” said Mr. Jackwood, stepping into the boat.
“Gi' me the oars.”
“What a' ye 'bout?” demanded Dickson, hastily descending
the stack. “Come back here! Take me aboard!”
“I got to look out for them 'ere lambs,” said Mr. Jackwood,
rowing around the stack. “Hold the lantern over on this
side.”
Dickson perceived that he was in a precarious position, and that
his wisest course would be to comply with the farmer's request.
He accordingly climbed over to the opposite side of the stack, and
held the light, while Mr. Jackwood pulled the sheep, one after
another, over the bow of the boat.
“There 's only five out of 'leven,” said Bim. “But I 'm glad
there an't no more; we should sink. O! the water almost come
over the side, then!”
“Here! an't ye goin' to take me aboard?” asked Dickson,
with increasing alarm.
“Not with this load,” replied the farmer. “I told ye there
would n't be room.”
“Look a' here!” remonstrated Dickson, “there 's room enough
there!”
“I 've got to bail like anything!” exclaimed Bim, plying the
dipper. “Don't ye go back, father! I 'd leave him there, — I
would!”
“'Tend to your bailin', Bim'lech!” said Mr. Jackwood, solemnly.
“An't ye comin'?” cried Dickson. “Don't leave a feller in
this way, now! Han't ye got no human feelin's?”
Mr. Jackwood made no reply, but rowed steadily and strongly
across the stream. Dickson roared with wrath.
“He 's changed his tune, han't he?” said Abimelech. “He 's
good to hold the lantern; we can see the light, and tell where we
be. Hear him swear!”
“Never mind him,” answered the farmer. “Look ahead, there,
and see if I 'm runnin' into anything.”
“These sheep can't stand on their legs!” said Bim. “They
lay right down in the water, and I han't hardly got room to bail.
Say, father, ye don't think Charlotte 's got drownded, do ye?”
“Are them bushes ahead, there? 'Tend to what I tell ye!”
“We 've passed all the bushes, I guess. I don't see none. —
I bet she got off the interval, somehow; I could. Where do ye
s'pose she 's gone to?”
Mr. Jackwood rowed steadily until the boat struck the ground;
then stepping ashore, with the boy's assistance he drew the bow
up out of water.
“You won't be afraid, will ye, if I leave ye to take care o' the
lambs? You can git 'em up to the barn some way, if you haf to
take one 't a time.”
“Where ye goin'? to bring him from the stack?” asked
Abimelech, timidly.
“Not jest yit,” replied his father.
“I do' wanter stay alone!” exclaimed the boy. “Le' me go
to the house with ye, and git Phœbe or Rove to come and help
with the lambs.”
“Come along, then,” said the farmer. They had emptied the
water out of the boat, leaving the sheep in it; and, having taken
the precaution to drag it a few feet further upon the snow, they
set out for the house.
“Where do you s'pose Charlotte is?” inquired the boy, keeping
close to his father's side.
“All you 've got to do is to git the lambs up; so, don't ax no
more questions,” said the farmer.
Arrived at the barn, he bridled a horse, and took him from the
stable; then, without waiting to say even a parting word to his
family, he mounted at the gate, and rode away in the darkness.
| XXXVI.
THE INUNDATION. Neighbor Jackwood | |