A PERILOUS NIGHT.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2551, 10 March 1877, Page 4

A PERILOUS NIGHT.

Far away in Queensland lay the little town of Dramore—town is a grand name to call it by, for in fact it was little more than a straggling village, built partly, on the bed of a river dried up so Jong that no one can remember seeing any trace of ■water there. Dramore boasted of a doctor, a lawyer, a police magistrate, a bank, a newspaper office, and a few stores, where you. could get almost^ anything, from pickled salmon to artificial flowers ; these were brought up. from the coast town on the bullock' drays, which on their return journey took down the wool from the sheep stations, and gold, from some gold reef which lay not far "off. Even the grandest houses were of a primitive kind. The doctor's house was a wooden cottage built on a sort of raised platform, a verandah all round it; Behind stood a, smaller cottage containing the servants' room and kitchen^ while at one side was another building used by Dr Gray as his surgery, and. where he also kept a large stock of medicine, for in that out-of-the-way place chemists were not to be found. Inside, the cottage was divided into four rooms, not rooms with ceilings and walls, as we have in England, but places open to the extreme height of the brown shingled roof, and only divided by wooden

partitions -about eight feet high, and something like the divisions in a stable. In one of those rooms, at the end of a hot summer's day in 187-, lay little Arthur and Harold Gray, safely tucked in under the mosquito curtains, with the glass doors thrown open to let in every breath of air. Before going to bed they had sat resting from play with their mother in the verandah, watching the sun set behind the blue Camira Mountains, where the gold reefs were, and where, long ago, the river, whose now dry and grass grown bed lay close beside them, must have taken its rise. The children slept, and night fell, a calm, tropical night, with a summer moon lighting up the blue and red water-lillies on the still lagoon, Dr. and Mrs Gray were awakened at ! midnight by little Arthur's voice: " Mamma, mamma, there is water coming in at the door! " " Nonsense, dear," replied his mother. " Go to sleep again as fast as you can." " But, mamma, I see it; it isn't nonsense ; and I can't go to sleep, because I hear a noise like a river far away." Mrs Gray got up, meaning to soothe her little boy, but on putting her feet to the ground, was as much astonished as Arthur to find the floor covered with water. She awoke her husband at once, but not a moment too soon; in five minutes the water was on a level with the beds, in ten minutes up to the top of the table. Outside the rain rattled on the roof, and the sound of rushing water, the screaming of women and children, and the crash of falling buildings, told her that some fearful disaster had happened. There was no time to think what it was. Dr Gray lilted his wife and children first on the table, and then to the top.of the parti tion which divided the rooms. There they sat on the cross-beams, shivering in their night-dresses, poor little Harold crying piteously at being awakened out'of his sleep ; he was but two years old, so he only understood that he was cold and sleepy. . His father put his arms round his eldest boy, and Mrs Gray kept Harold nestled close to her side; and so they sat for hours. Happily the doors and windows having been left open, the water found no resistance, and rushed through at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour, carrying with it chairs, books, and such small things, and destroying all the rest, but leaving the house standing. Outside floated a stream of wreckage—a haystack, with an old woman safe on the top, a wooden cradle with a baby, who was found alive next day some miles down the creek, dead sheep and cattle, with furniture, and even houses. It was supposed that a waterspout had burst somewhere up in the Camira Mountains, and that the torrent had rushed down the old river bed until it came to the flat place where Dramore stood, when it broke over its banks, sweeping away all barriers, and rushed over the town and country till the volume of water had spent itself. But to return to our friends the Grays on the crossbeams, there they sat until three o'clock in the morning, the father - observing, with speechless horror, that. every moment the water rose higher, until at last it splashed over his feet— the cruel, hungry water, that had brought sorrow and death to so many homes that ni^ht. Their mother tried to cheer the children by telling them their favorite stories, and singing their pet nursery rhymes, but she too well knew the danger was increasing. " Papa, it makes me giddy to look at the water. lam sure I shall fall," poor little Arthur cried.

"Look at mamma,' darling," said his father. " Never mind the water; it will soon be daylight, and then perhaps we can get away." Dr Gray had his eyes steadily fixed on one spot in the wainscoting; for several minutes he did not speak, and then, just as a clock, fixed high in the wall, struck three he exclaimed, "Thank God, Kate, the water is going down ! I have hoped so for some , time, and now I am quite sure; so we have only to hold on a little longer and we shall be safe." And thus they held on for an hour or two longer; then they got to the comparatively comfortable resting-place of the. large dining-room table, and later on they saw, in the • early morning light, a boat coming up to the verandah* one which was usually moored to a tree by a lagoon. Into this they were put, and taken to a place of safety at a friend's house sorae miles off. J It will be many years before Arthur Gray forgets his night on. the cross-beam, and I hope that sometimes, when you are comfortably tucked in your cosy little beds, you will think of the flood at Dramore, and will remember, to be thankful for your own pleasant quarters.—Little Folks. .......