CHAPTER I. THE OLD WOODEN BRIDGE.

“Is there no appeal, Miss Canfield—no hope in the future? Great Heavens! do you understand that these words are taking away my life?”

The young girl, who had just refused the most ardent love that man ever offered to woman, turned her horse half around, and looked with earnest sympathy into that handsome face.

“Do you think that I am cruel enough to say what I have said for the miserable pleasure of enticing you on to a renewal of the honor you have done me—or that I have not felt as much pain as it is possible for me to give? If human love were the growth of human will, Egbert Fletcher, you would not have asked for mine twice.”

She spoke frankly, and with intense earnestness, for the white despair in that face appealed to every noble feeling she possessed.

“I believe you; God knows, if you were less honorable, less perfect, some of this bitter disappointment would be spared me. Forgive me if I have been importunate; if I could not yield you up without a struggle.”

26“Forgive me, rather,” answered the girl, with sweet humility, leaning from her saddle, and reaching out her hand; “but if I have misled you in anything, I shall never forgive myself.”

“It is my own wild hopes that have misled me,” answered Fletcher, taking her hand, and pressing his lips upon it with tender reverence, that brought tears into the proud eyes of Bertha Canfield; but she hastily snatched her hand away, for, turning a corner of the hilly road through which they were riding, came two young ladies, fairly mounted, and sitting their horses gracefully; but their long cloth skirts were spattered with mud, and the black feathers fell limp and uncurled from their riding-hats.

Very young and pretty were these two girls, as they galloped down the rough hill-side, one ahead of the other, laughing merrily, while the moist air swept their cheeks till they glowed like wet roses.

One, a bright-faced, slender girl, whose braids of ruddy hair had been shaken down in masses from under her hat, checked her horse and appeared to wait, while she attempted with one hand to force the braids into order again.

The other, a lovely blonde, with eyes that seemed to have stolen their color from a robin’s nest with newly laid eggs in it, galloped on, turning her head and shaking her whip in triumph at the school-mate she had so recklessly outridden.

“Ah, ha, you cheated us by a short cut,” she said. “We rounded the hill to head you off. So here we are ready for a new race.”

Bertha Canfield strove to shake off the distress that was too visible in her countenance, but failed utterly, 27and broke down in an effort to answer this speech, gayly as it was spoken.

“What, angry because we caught you trying to run away?” said the fair rider, glancing from Bertha to her lover. “I have ridden at this break-neck speed only to disturb a tender tête-à-tête, and wish I hadn’t dashed in upon you; for Clara’s hair is all down and our habits are so heavy with mud that they fairly drag one from the saddle. Now, what is the matter, Bertha Canfield?”

“Nothing! nothing whatever!” said Bertha, “only—only—we were thinking that there might be some danger.”

“Danger! Oh, nonsense. Still there may be,” said the girl, darting an arch look from Bertha to her lover.

“We have been wondering what kept you so far behind,” said Fletcher, quickly. “Have you seen the view from that sharp curve of the road? It gives us command of the whole valley. I see Miss Canfield is determined to wait for her friend. Let us ride forward.”

Bertha Canfield gave Fletcher one quick, grateful look, as he rode away from her.

“Oh, this is superb!” exclaimed Mary Noel, with school-girl enthusiasm. “Such depth, such richness of color! How gloriously this burst of sunshine breaks over the wet leaves and blossom-laden branches, with here and there a patch of vivid green in the hemlock hollows. Was ever anything so beautiful! But, mercy on me, how the river has swollen! All the banks are gone, and that picturesque old mill absolutely stands in the water. Yes, yes, there is danger.”

The young man took a swift survey of the scene at his feet. A rich valley, scattered with farm-houses; the broad, deep Naugatuck sweeping into it through a gorge 28in the hills, an old stone mill, where the stream fell most rapidly over a high dam, and below that an old wooden bridge, with its arches buried in the water. On all sides the hills were rich with abundant summer foliage. It was no wonder the girl cried out, when the view first broke upon her. At all times it was beautiful; but now the swollen river, rolling through it in a great amber-hued torrent, made it majestic.

“Beautiful, but dangerous! We should have returned,” said the young man. “The river swells every moment—see how it creeps toward the mill.”

Fletcher wheeled his horse, and rode back to the party, which was coming leisurely forward, enjoying the freshness of the air.

“We must make haste,” he said, “the flood is rising. It has already reached five feet, at least, on the ford.”

Bertha Canfield was the first to tighten her bridle.

“We have done wrong to stay so late. My poor mother will be frightened. The very name of a flood makes her turn pale. This will drive her frantic if we do not get home at once.”

“But she must know that the storm kept us,” said Mary Noel. “The morning promised to be so pleasant; but I never saw such rain in my life. Of course, the dear lady knows that we could not start in a tempest like that.”

“She knows how fearfully such rains swell the river. It is as much as our lives are worth to attempt the ford after dark. Come, let us set off at full speed, or it will be too late when we reach the bridge.”

Bertha settled down firmly in her saddle as she spoke, and adding, excitedly, “Come on! come on! ride for your lives!” dashed recklessly down the road.

29The mountain road was rough, and the hills steep. Still Bertha would have led the way, but for Fletcher, who kept pace with her, while the others followed in almost dangerous haste; for the descent of those hills was at all times a perilous matter, and few women could ride like Bertha Canfield. But on the whole party went, in a wild gallop, down the hills and into the valley, which, just that moment, was all aglow with sunbeams, that shot fiery lances through a break in the gray clouds that hung above it in turbulent draperies, and grew terrible in that struggle of light and darkness.

Bertha Canfield was a brave-hearted girl, but when she saw that vast body of water heaving and rolling through the valley, her eyes widened with fear, and a deathly paleness came upon her. For one instant she drew up her horse, and seemed about to fly back to the hills.

Her companions, who had never seen a flood before, and knew nothing of its power, set up a laugh. The danger that frightened her only excited them.

“Come on!” she cried, stung by their triumphant laughter. “If we must pass. The peril will not be less for waiting. On to the old bridge! the ford is swallowed up!”

Away the whole party dashed up the valley, scattering a storm of mud-flakes from their horses’ hoofs, which were washed every few minutes by pools of water, swept over the highway from the river as it spread wider and deeper over the road and across the meadows.

The mill, with a broad dam above it, and the old bridge some few rods below, was in full sight now; but a great flood of water had lifted itself almost to a level with the dam, and was pouring through the lower windows 30of the mill, whose foundations of heavy stone were already buried in a wild whirlpool formed by some broken timbers.

Bertha checked her horse.

“Great Heavens!” she cried, “the old bridge seems to move! All its arches are buried—it looks like a railroad spanning the water. I dare not attempt it!”

The whole party paused. Bertha’s unusual terror had a momentary effect upon the rest. She turned her eyes from the bridge to an ancient low-roofed farm-house on the opposite side of the valley. Usually a broad meadow divided it from the river, but now the water came within a few rods of the door. At a window of this house she saw a lady, fluttering like a pigeon in its cote when a storm threatens.

“It is grandmother—she can see the danger dearly from that window,” said Bertha. “There, she flings up her hands—it is to warn us! Thank Heaven, my mother does not see us yet.”

“No, no,” cried Mary Noel; “she beckons us. Why, Bertha—Bertha Canfield, how can you be such a coward? The idea!”

Bertha turned to Fletcher, consulting him with her eyes.

“The bridge has withstood all floods for thirty years, they tell me, and there is no other way of crossing.”

“But the water is already even with the planking. See how the drift wood chokes up the timbers!” cried Bertha, panic-stricken.

“Still, it seems firm; and we have no other way.”

“Firm!” said Mary Noel; “I should think it was! There is timber enough in it to build a city wharf. Why, there must have been fifty floods in the valley, 31worse than this, since the old bridge was built, and it hasn’t given way yet.”

“Oh, yes, it has,” said Clara Anderson, whose home was near the mouth of the Housatonic. “Half of it broke away, in an awful flood, just twenty years ago. It all happened the vary year I was born.”

“Half of it broke away!” exclaimed the others.

“Yes; it was an awful time. The old mill there was flooded to the second story; sacks of wheat and barrels of flour went whirling down the stream, and a man was killed.”

“A man killed! How?”

“He would not take warning. The neighbors told him that it was unsafe; but some one was waiting for him on the other side, and, spite of everything, he dashed on to the old bridge just as a great drift of logs and a pile of boards from a saw-mill that had been swept away up the gorge plunged over the dam and struck it. There had been an awful strain on the timbers before. They gave way now, and while the people stood shouting for him to turn back, the flood was upon both man and horse, and swept them under, struggling to the last.

“It was terrible, the neighbors said, to stand there helpless, and see that poor horse whirling and whirling about in those fierce eddies, with the rider still upon his back, sometimes completely under water, sometimes tossed up by the current, till his deadly white face could be seen like that of a corpse.

“They had an awful contest for life—both man and beast—but a whirlpool dragged them under at last. Then a cry of dismay went up from the people on the shore, who were casting out ropes and planks, with a 32desperate hope of saving them. But the poor man was gone. They found him, the next day, ten miles down the valley, and he was buried from your grandfather’s house, Bertha. Grandmother has told me about it a hundred times.”

While Clara Anderson was telling her story, the whole group had drawn their horses together, and were listening with breathless interest.

Bertha said nothing; but she thought that twenty years ago was the very year that she was born; for she was just the age of Clara Anderson.

“I seem to have seen all that,” she said, at last; “but I am certain no one ever told me of it before.”

“That is strange,” replied Clara Anderson; “because the man was going to your grandfather’s. A wonderfully handsome man he was, the people said—an Englishman, travelling in this country, or something like that.”

“Well, Clara Anderson, you have half frightened us all into cowards, and here we are huddled together like chickens scared by a hawk!” said Mary Noel, courageous in her ignorance of the real danger. “Are we to pass that old bridge, or not? That is the question. I, for one, am not to be turned back because a man was drowned half a hundred years ago. Of course, the bridge was made stronger after that. Come on—come on! Who’s afraid, ‘let him turn and fly!’”

As Mary Noel uttered this reckless speech, she put her horse to his speed, calling on the rest to follow, and dashed on toward the bridge, sending back a laugh, that was half a shout, as she went.

Clara Anderson, seized by the same reckless spirit, rushed after her, and, in very desperation, Bertha followed, 33but more slowly; for Fletcher, struck by the ghostly whiteness of her face, was persuading her to turn back.

“No! no!” she said; “I will not prove myself the coward they think me! Besides, the people at home are suffering tortures.”

“Come, then. We shall be over in three minutes. Hear how their horses’ hoofs thunder across the planks.”

Fletcher put spurs to his horse, and Bertha kept up with him, trembling all over, but fired with desperate courage, such as makes cowards brave when forced into the heat of a battle.

When these two reached one end of the bridge, their companions had passed over, and, waving their whips in triumph, drew up to wait for the party to unite again.

Bertha was ready for anything now. She struck her horse a sharp blow, and even led her companion on to the bridge.

Scarcely had those hoofs struck the planks, when a great dusky object appeared above the dam, like some huge toiling monster heaved up from the slime of the flood.

The people on the other side saw this horrible danger first, and flung up their arms in useless warning.

It came tumbling and reeling forward—a huge forest tree—heaving toward them root foremost, raining coal black mud from a hundred scraggy arms, and dragging behind it great gnarled boughs and masses of foliage, that swayed and writhed in the turbid water like serpents trailing after a monster more hideous than themselves.

One instant the two sat paralyzed, gazing upon the hideous thing which menaced them with such awful and 34sudden peril; then the young man gave a quick glance right and left, and seized Bertha’s bridle.

“We must turn back. Keep your seat firmly!”

“I will,” she answered, for positive danger had brought back all her courage. “Go on; I will follow.”

Fletcher’s horse obeyed the spur, and wheeled around; but that huge forest oak, with all its entanglement of roots and branches, reeled over the dam, that moment, with a mighty plunge, that sent all the mass of its knotted roots deep down into the boiling waters, and was held, for one awful moment, perfectly upright, its branches snagged and broken—the bark torn in great patches from its trunk—a thing of terror, planted deep in a whirlpool.

Again and again Fletcher plunged his spurs into the maddened horse, and urged him on with desperate vehemence. But the poor animal stood lost in fierce amazement—grinding the bit between his teeth, and quaking in all his limbs, for he saw the great tree looming down upon them.

“Save yourself! For Heaven’s sake, save yourself! I cannot manage him!”

“No!” cried the brave girl, still reining in her horse. “I could not love you, Fletcher, but I can die with you!”

“Then, for my sake—for God’s sake—turn back!”

“With you—not else!”

Fletcher was about to leap from his horse and force her to retreat; but, that instant, the bridge shook and swayed in all its massive timbers. The mighty forest oak was hurled against it with terrible force, and the shock set Fletcher’s horse to plunging. But for the planken sides of the bridge, he would have backed into the flood.

35The pressure upon the bridge became more and more appalling; over the dam rushed the roof and logs of some mountain cabin, and these were hurled forward with a violence to which those old timbers, strained to the utmost, must give way.

Fletcher saw the increasing peril, and gained almost superhuman power over his horse.

“On! on!” he shouted, lashing Bertha’s horse with his whip.

The beasts leaped forward neck and neck. Two-thirds of the bridge was spanned. Another minute, and they would have been safe; but now the broken cabin took the timbers at their weakest part. A fearful crash followed.

“On! on! Oh, my God, give us one minute!”

Fletcher seized Bertha’s bridle. The frightened horses obeyed, and leaped forward, snorting with terror.

“On! on! on! God of Heaven!”

The bridge had given away; both horses recoiled from the leap which would have brought them among the timbers sinking in the chasm before them.

Each moment the gulf was widening. There was no chance of retreat, for behind them the planks were swept away, leaving nothing but skeleton timbers writhing in the torrent.

Fletcher, still holding Bertha’s bridle, dug both spurs into his own beast, and lashed the other with his whip. Maddened and frantic, both horses leaped together. One cleared the awful abyss.

The whole end of the bridge dipped and sunk downward. When those impetuous hoofs struck the planks, they were under water. Bertha’s horse slipped down them. He made a desperate struggle, gained a new 36foothold, lost it, and, with an awful cry, that seemed more than human, rolled back into the flood.

A shrill cry broke from the men and women gathered at each end of the ruined bridge.

For one instant Fletcher and his horse disappeared; but, relieved of a double weight, the timbers rose a little, and hove him into view. Then a wild shout cut through the roar of the flood; out, as it seemed, from the very whirl of the waters a burdened horse staggered fiercely up the sinking decline, and they saw that it bore a man and a woman.

In a second of time, while her horse was slipping downward, Fletcher had seized Bertha by her arm, and dragged her across his own beast, which struggled fearfully for a moment, then, with a fierce leap, hurled them both through the scattered crowd.

CHAPTER II. GRATITUDE.

Bertha was insensible. A deadly sickness seized upon her when she felt the horse slipping helplessly down to the roaring waters, that seemed to clamor like famished wild beasts for their lives. Even now she believed herself dead; for the first sound that struck her senses was the fierce howl of the flood as it rioted across the wrecked bridge, seizing old planks and timbers, and carrying them away piecemeal.

“Bertha, my poor Bertha, look up—stir! Do something that we may know you are alive!”

37It was Fletcher, who forgot everything but the danger. The wild tenderness of his voice might have aroused the dead, but it did not reach Bertha.

“Oh, my God! she is dead—she is dead!” he cried, turning his white face to the crowd, as he held the senseless girl in his arms, with the despairing look of a man who prays to be contradicted. “Is she dead?”

The last words were uttered almost with a cry of rage.

“Make room; here comes the old people.”

A little old woman, in garments of soft dove-color, and with a delicate Quaker cap on her head, came through the crowd, and, kneeling by the lifeless girl, kissed her on the forehead and on the white lips.

“Give her to me, young man, and thee go for a doctor,” she said, gently untying the riding-hat, which she flung away, with its wet feather, leaving the pale face and rich disturbance of Bertha’s hair all exposed.

Fletcher resigned the cold form to the gentle old woman, and turned to obey, but some one had been before him. That moment a doctor came bustling through the crowd, covered with mud, and carrying a whip in his hand.

“Dead—nothing of the kind!” he asserted, answering the intense expression of Fletcher’s eyes, rather than the tearful questions of the two girls, who wrung their hands over their school-mate in bitter self-upbraiding. “Give me brandy, if any one has had the thought to bring it, and a warm shawl; you will find one in my buggy. Thank you, that is just the thing. Rub her hands while I pour some down her throat; there, that brings her to.”

Bertha opened her eyes, and her lips moved.

“Fletcher—Fletcher—did he go down?”