CHAPTER XV.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 212, 23 July 1887, Page 7

CHAPTER XV.

" WJTII TERROR MUTE." So far. so fnst the water dravc Tlic heart Jmtl hardly time to boat Before a shallow, seething wave Sobbed on the threshold at our feet; The feet had hardly time to flee Before it buike against the knee. Jeax Ingi:TjOW. " The pjinic-stricken women gazed at each other n dnmb horror, find then looked at me in silent prayer, as if I could have aved them. The best I could do then wap to make the attempt, and no time was to be lost. We were already ankle deep in the water that covered the iloor, and that

was still rising. " • There is no immediate danger feo our lives,' I said, as calmly as I could speak. ' This house is too strong to be mo\ ed by the flood, and too high to be overflowed. We will first go up to the floor above. If the water should reach us up there, we will go to the attic, which is thirty feet above the ground. The water will scarcely lise so high as that after having reached this high bank. But fin>t we must secure thin, 1 I added, going to the head of the coffin that contained my mother's precious remains. " Silently two of the strongest women approached.to assist me. '•The two other women took each a lighted candle from the mantel-shelf to show the way - one preceding us, the uthei waiting to follow. " Reverently and tenderly we raised the coffin and bore it out into the hall and up the broad stairs into the front chamber over the sitting-room we had left, and then we gently placed ib on the bed, because theie was no table large enough to support it " I begged the women to sit down there and compose themselves, while I could go below and try to ?a\ c the poor dumb animals — though, indeed, they were not altogether 'dumb.' They weie uplifting their voices in a hideous chorus of terror to which the thunder of the cataracts formed a horrible f.ocoinpaniment. " I took one of the candles from the dress-ing-bureau, putitinalantern, aud went down stairs. When neai the bottom 1 stepped half a leg deep in the rising water. No door had burst open yet ; all this had oozed in under the door sills and under the floor. " I waded through the water to the back door, and opened it with great difficulty. I had to push it open through the water, with which the back yard as well as the lower floors of the house was overflowed. The cows were bellowing like bulls in their mortal fear ; the poultry were screaming like wild water-fowl : the cataracts were roaring like demons of destruction. " And it was also daik as pitch, but for the limited light of the lanterns I carried. " I waded out to the rear of the yard, which then sloped upwards to the base of the mountain, and therefore wa& not so deep under water as the front. I first opened the back gate, aud then the doors of the cow-pen, a.id released the bellowing beasts, who, with tossing heads and lashing tails, tumultuously rushed out,and, led by their instincts, waded through the yard to seek safety on the mountain beyond. " I opened the hen-house door to set the poultry free ; but they did not avail themselves of the outlet ; they only screamed and clung to the highest roost. I was obliged to leave them to their fate, hoping that when the water should reach them they would escape to the mountains. "Another voice swelled the chorus of horror. It was that of my ma.stiff ' Hero,' who was the precedessor of our watch-dogs, Jupiter and Juno. He had scrambled to the top of his kennel, to which he was chained, and which was already unsteady in the water, as if it would soon be afloat. " I unchained him, and he partly waded, partly swam, and so followed me into the house. I moved with great difficulty, for now the water was up to my waist. I could not close the door after me. My dog swam behind me into the hall. The chairs were all afloat there. " The foot of the stairs stood ten steps deep in the water. I waded to them, climbed up them (followed closely by Hero), and returned to the room where the terrified women still remainded watching the coffin in the bed. "'How is the water?' fearfully whispered Miss Sibby Edwards, the eldest of the party. " ' Still rising, but not as yet threatening our lives. We are still six or seven feet above it, and if it reaches us here we can still go fifteen feet higher to the attic floor,' I answered. "I sat down among the women and waited for the dawn of day. From time to time I went out of the room, candle in hand, to look over the banisters at the water, which continued to rise step by step. I knew the hour must be very near morning, but I had no way of ascertaining the time. The clock was probably afloat and had stopped. I heard no sound within the house but the knocking together of the chairs and other light articles of furniture moving on the surface of the water. i "At last I went to the front window of the room, opened the shutters, and looked out upon the dark night. " What a scene ! " Looking from the window of my house seemed like looking from the port-hole of a ship at sea ; for there was nothing to be seen, at first, in the darkness but bkv and water. " Yet, oh, joy ! There was the morningstar, jusfc visible above a dispersing cloud on the eastern horizon. I knew that cloud overhung the summit of Eagle Roost bridge ; but for the mountain or any other vestige of dry land, I could see no more than if I had been on mid-ocean at midnight. " I closed the window and went once more, lantern in hand, to iook over the banisters at the water. " Heaven be praised ! It had sunk a step. It was Btill sinking. I came in and told the despairing women this encouraging news, ab which they all broke forth in fervent thanksgiving. " It was now certain that our lives were safe, whatever destruction might have come to ouv property. " We all now waited patiently and hopefully for the daylight. It came on apace, stealing through the crevices of the closed window-shutters. Then I arose and threw them open. The sun was just flashing in splendour above the cresb of Eagle Roost Ridge, revealing a water view magnificent in extent aud hideous in destruction. "Wilde river had overflowed its banks and risen until it filled the whole valley from Eagle Roost Ridge on the east to Catamount Cliffs on the west, while from the mountain heights on either side dashed down the foaming torrents swollen now to the size of catlap, ts, " Oh the surface of tho angry river floated dashing to and fro, whirling, wheeling, and

colliding, all manner of natural and house* hold wrecks -trees torn up by the roots or broken off to the ground, and cast upon the waters j sheds, timbers and doors of houses carried away and broken up by the flood ; horses, cows, sheep and swine, some dead and floating, some living and struggling, that had been swept away by the inunda- { tion. "I gazed on all tins rack and ruin, unable to rejoice in the firm foundation of my own house, built upon the rocks strong enough to withstand the storm when ' the winds rode,and the rains descended, and the floods came ' and beat upon it - unable v) rejoice because of the deep pity I felt for those homeless sufferers whose wrecked houses and drowned cattle floated in confusion upon the surface of the Wilde. " 1 left the window (where my place was immediately taken by the women, whose tenor had now given away to curiosity), and I went to the back room and opened the window overlooking the yard. 11 On that side, also, the waters reached the base of the mountain, and wcie strewn with the wrecks of trees, houses, fences, and the bodies of animals, though not in such gieat numbers as floated on the channel of the ri\er. " 1 did not sec any sign of my own cattle, and I hoped that they had escaped to the mountain. 1 saw, however, the poultry, perching on the tops of the chestnut trees, which stood with their trunks several feet deep in the water. They appeared utterly disconsolate, as if dumbly waiting the peal of doom. " I returned again to my friends in the room of death, and sat down with them. There was nothing we could do but wait patiently for the waters to subside. I placed myself at the front window, and gazed out upon the stupendous devastation of the Hood— the chaos of a second destroyed world. I thought with pangs of anxiety about the travellers who had hailed my boat on the night before, in the midst of the stoim, and who hud, when unable to cross the river, taken refuge in the Eagle Roo-t ferry-house. That ferry-house was now at leabt eight feet under water. Mad they fled from it in time to becuie their safety ? Who could tell me ? ! "It would be tedious to lelate how ; slowly the waters fell to their normal level. Early in the forenoon the war of the cataracts began to subside. By noon they seemed but a little louder than usual. The water fell by degrees Eaily in the forenoon it had retired from the staircase. By noon it had -withdrawn from the first floor. " Then I went down stairs on an investigating and purveying expedition. "Chaos on a small scale met my eyes. Nearly all the furniture that had been set afloat by water lay piled up in the most disoiderly manner against the front inner walls of the rooms, where it had been washed and left by the ebbing flood. The floors, and tho walls up to within a few inches of the ceiling, were soaking wet, and the whole place was satin ated with an atmosphere of dampness and closeness. The heavy mahogany sideboard stood fast ; but evei y glass had been washed from it and shivered by contact with heavier matter ; the dishes and pans and cans from the stationary kitchen dresser had been floated away and piled up against the arms and seat of my overturned easy-chair under the front window. The very ashes on the kitchen hearth had been washed out upon the floor, giving the place the smell of fiesh lye. The doors and windoAVS as well as the walls of the house hid stood fast, and I blessed the memory of my forefather, who had built the foundation and superstructure of his habitation so strong and steadfast as to resist the force of such a flood as we had passed through. " I went out into the yard to investigate the state of affairs there. " The water had entirely subsided and the rocky nature of the soil left the place almost free from mud. The wood-pile, however, had been dislodged, and every log had been floated away except here and there one left stranded on the ground or cast up against the house by the retiring waters. " It seemed next to impossible to kindle a fire out of wet wood upon a wet hearth" ; yet, as my kind neighbours upstairs had tasted nothing since the preceding afternoon and as it was now high noon, the first thing to be done was to make a fire and cook breakfast. The kitchen match-box was of course washed away, and the matches scattered and ruined ; but there was a tin match-safe in one of the upper chambers filled with matches. I went up and got them, and also collected from the attic some waste paper and an empty packing-box, with which I made a fire on the kitchen hearth. ••By that time Miss Sibby had found out what I was about, and hastened down to take the work out of my hands. It was no part of her woman's policy to let any man meddle with the cooking while she was about, she said ; but I might look up the provisions, if I pleased. " I did please ; but the task was a com- j plicated one. Our tin coffee-box was found washed up into the front corner of the hall, the flour barrel under the parlour window, and the hams of bacon scattered everywhere, and everything more or less . damaged by the water. \ " While my kind neighbour was preparing our late breakfast, 1 busied myself in setting up the overturned furniture and ' putting things to rights as well as the cir- ! cuniBtances permitted me to do. Fortun ately, in this summer weather, our parlour carpet had been taken up, and so the floor could, dry more quickly. "While l was thus engaged, the other women came down stairs with offers of assistance. And, with their help, we soon restored the lower rooms to some order, "Then, with reverent care, we brought the coffin down and laid it in state upon the table, in the middle of the parlour floor —for the funeral had been arranged to take place on that afternoon. " We took our breakfast in the kitchen with what comfort vre might." "' I Vegan to be very anxious for the arrival of Jess, who had been sent down to Wildeville on the preceding evening to purchase some decent mourning goods, and had promised to return early this morning. Of course it would have been impossible for her to return in the forenoon, and I began to fear that it might be impracticable for her to do so in the afternoon in time for the funeral, as evidently the worst stage of the inundation was farther down the river, in the neighbourhood of Wildeville —which was most likely overflowed, if not totally destroyed. Ah ! how could I think of any individual trouble in the face of such a possibility ? " After breakfast, leaving the neighbour women to clear up the kitchen, I went out of the front of the house to reconnoitre. " The water had entirely ebbed from my ground, which, on acconnt of the rocky soil and steady slope to the river, was entirely free from mud. "The river itself had already fallen several feet, and the peak-roofs of my two boat-houses were just visible above the waters. I knew by that sign the boats as well as the houses wore safe, and again I thanked the Lord, and blessed the prudence of my ancestor, who had made all- our buildings strong enough to withstand the utmost fury of the floods. "The scene was hot nearly so crowded' with wrecks as it had been at an earlier hour of the day. A great number of dead

bodies, trees and timbers had already been swept down the river, leaving the place i comparatively clear. " A new feature had also been added to the scene. The surface of the water was alive with active men in boats, passing up and down, trying to recover some remnant of their wrecked property, or to rescue some of the exhausted animals that floated there, still living and feebly struggling to keep up. "I hurried on down to the edge of the water to offer my help to these toiling men. •« Yon know, my dear Gertrude, that there is a thick growth of long grass, Hags and water-lilies that crowd the upper part of the beach. " I had reached this spot and was making my way on through them, with my eyes fixed upon the busy life on the river, not heeding where I stepped, when my foot struck against some obstacle. "I looked down, and immediately forgot all about the toiling men in the boats in the interest I felt in the object at my feet. *