Produced by David Widger
MY TERMINAL MORAINE
By Frank E. Stockton
Copyright, 1892, by P. F. Collier
A man's birth is generally considered the most important event of his
existence, but I truly think that what I am about to relate was more
important to me than my entrance into this world; because, had not these
things happened, I am of the opinion that my life would have been of no
value to me and my birth a misfortune.
My father, Joshua Cuthbert, died soon after I came to my majority,
leaving me what he had considered a comfortable property. This consisted
of a large house and some forty acres of land, nearly the whole of which
lay upon a bluff, which upon three sides descended to a little valley,
through which ran a gentle stream. I had no brothers or sisters. My
mother died when I was a boy, and I, Walter Cuthbert, was left the sole
representative of my immediate family.
My estate had been a comfortable one to my father, because his income
from the practice of his profession as a physician enabled him to keep
it up and provide satisfactorily for himself and me. I had no profession
and but a very small income, the result of a few investments my father
had made. Left to myself, I felt no inducement to take up any profession
or business. My wants were simple, and for a few years I lived without
experiencing any inconvenience from the economies which I was obliged
to practice. My books, my dog, my gun and my rod made life pass very
pleasantly to me, and the subject of an increase of income never
disturbed my mind.
But as time passed on the paternal home began to present an air of
neglect and even dilapidation, which occasionally attracted my attention
and caused, as I incidentally discovered, a great deal of unfavorable
comment among my neighbors, who thought that I should go to work and
at least earn money enough to put the house and grounds in a condition
which should not be unworthy the memory of the good Dr. Cuthbert. In
fact, I began to be looked upon as a shiftless young man; and, now and
then, I found a person old enough and bold enough to tell me so.
But, instead of endeavoring to find some suitable occupation by which I
might better my condition and improve my estate, I fell in love, which,
in the opinion of my neighbors, was the very worst thing that could have
happened to me at this time. I lived in a thrifty region, and for a man
who could not support himself to think of taking upon him the support of
a wife, especially such a wife as Agnes Havelot would be, was considered
more than folly and looked upon as a crime. Everybody knew that I was in
love with Miss Havelot, for I went to court her as boldly as I went to
fish or shoot. There was a good deal of talk about it, and this finally
came to the ears of Mr. Havelot, my lady's father, who, thereupon,
promptly ordered her to have no more to do with me.
The Havelot estate, which adjoined mine, was a very large one,
containing hundreds and hundreds of acres; and the Havelots were rich,
rich enough to frighten any poor young man of marrying intent. But I
did not appreciate the fact that I was a poor young man. I had never
troubled my head about money as it regarded myself, and I now did not
trouble my head about it as it regarded Agnes. I loved her, I hoped she
loved me, and all other considerations were thrown aside. Mr. Havelot,
however, was a man of a different way of thinking.
It was a little time before I became convinced that the decision of
Agnes's father, that there should be no communication between that dear
girl and myself, really meant anything. I had never been subjected to
restrictions, and I did not understand how people of spirit could submit
to them; but I was made to understand it when Mr. Havelot, finding me
wandering about his grounds, very forcibly assured me that if I should
make my appearance there again, or if he discovered any attempt on my
part to communicate with his daughter in any way, he would send her from
home. He concluded the very brief interview by stating that if I had any
real regard for his daughter's happiness I would cease attentions which
would meet with the most decided disapprobation from her only surviving
parent and which would result in exiling her from home, I begged for one
more interview with Miss Havelot, and if it had been granted I should
have assured her of the state of my affections, no matter if there were
reasons to suppose that I would never see her again; but her father very
sternly forbade anything of the kind, and I went away crushed.
It was a very hard case, for if I played the part of a bold lover and
tried to see Agnes without regard to the wicked orders of her father,
I should certainly be discovered; and then it would be not only myself,
but the poor girl, who would suffer. So I determined that I would submit
to the Havelot decree. No matter if I never saw her again, never heard
the sound of her voice, it would be better to have her near me, to have
her breathe the same air, cast up her eyes at the same sky, listen to
the same birds, that I breathed, looked at and listened to, than to have
her far away, probably in Kentucky, where I knew she had relatives,
and where the grass was blue and the sky probably green, or at any
rate would appear so to her if in the least degree she felt as I did in
regard to the ties of home and the affinities between the sexes.
I now found myself in a most doleful and even desperate condition of
mind. There was nothing in the world which I could have for which I
cared. Hunting, fishing, and the rambles through woods and fields
that had once been so delightful to me now became tasks which I seldom
undertook. The only occupation in which I felt the slightest interest
was that of sitting in a tower of my house with a telescope, endeavoring
to see my Agnes on some portion of her father's grounds; but, although I
diligently directed my glass at the slightest stretch of lawn or bit
of path which I could discern through openings in the foliage, I never
caught sight of her. I knew, however, by means of daily questions
addressed to my cook, whose daughter was a servant in the Havelot
house, that Agnes was yet at home. For that reason I remained at home.
Otherwise, I should have become a wanderer.
About a month after I had fallen into this most unhappy state an old
friend came to see me. We had been school-fellows, but he differed from
me in almost every respect. He was full of ambition and energy, and,
although he was but a few years older than myself, he had already made
a name in the world. He was a geologist, earnest and enthusiastic in his
studies and his investigations. He told me frankly that the object of
his visit was twofold. In the first place, he wanted to see me, and,
secondly, he wanted to make some geological examinations on my grounds,
which were situated, as he informed me, upon a terminal moraine,
a formation which he had not yet had an opportunity of practically
investigating.
I had not known that I lived on a moraine, and now that I knew it, I did
not care. But Tom Burton glowed with high spirits and lively zeal as he
told me how the great bluff on which my house stood, together with the
other hills and wooded terraces which stretched away from it along the
side of the valley, had been formed by the minute fragments of rock and
soil, which, during ages and ages, had been gradually pushed down from
the mountains by a great glacier which once occupied the country to the
northeast of my house. “Why, Walter, my boy,” he cried, “if I had not
read it all in the books I should have known for myself, as soon as
I came here, that there had once been a glacier up there, and as it
gradually moved to the southwest it had made this country what it is.
Have you a stream down there in that dell which I see lies at right
angles with the valley and opens into it?”
“No,” said I; “I wish there were one. The only stream we have flows
along the valley and not on my property.”
Without waiting for me Tom ran down into my dell, pushed his way through
the underbrush to its upper end, and before long came back flushed with
heat and enthusiasm.
“Well, sir,” he said, “that dell was once the bed of a glacial stream,
and you may as well clear it out and plant corn there if you want to,
for there never will be another stream flowing through it until there is
another glacier out in the country beyond. And now I want you to let
me dig about here. I want to find out what sort of stuff the glacier
brought down from the mountains. I will hire a man and will promise you
to fill up all the holes I make.”
I had no objection to my friend's digging as much as he pleased, and
for three days he busied himself in getting samples of the soil of my
estate. Sometimes I went out and looked at him, and gradually a little
of his earnest ardor infused itself into me, and with some show of
interest I looked into the holes he had made and glanced over the
mineral specimens he showed me.
“Well, Walter,” said he, when he took leave of me, “I am very sorry that
I did not discover that the glacier had raked out the bed of a gold mine
from the mountains up there and brought it down to you, or at any rate,
some valuable iron ore. But I am obliged to say it did not do anything
of the sort. But I can tell you one thing it brought you, and, although
it is not of any great commercial value, I should think you could make
good use of it here on your place. You have one of the finest deposits
of gravel on this bluff that I have met with, and if you were to take
out a lot of it and spread it over your driveways and paths, it would
make it a great deal pleasanter for you to go about here in bad weather
and would wonderfully improve your property. Good roads always give
an idea of thrift and prosperity.” And then he went away with a
valise nearly full of mineral specimens which he assured me were very
interesting.
My interest in geological formations died away as soon as Tom Burton had
departed, but what he said about making gravel roads giving the place an
air of thrift and prosperity had its effect upon my mind. It struck
me that it would be a very good thing if people in the neighborhood,
especially the Havelots, were to perceive on my place some evidences
of thrift and prosperity. Most palpable evidences of unthrift and
inpecuniosity had cut me off from Agnes, and why might it not be that
some signs of improved circumstances would remove, to a degree at least,
the restrictions which had been placed between us? This was but a very
little thing upon which to build hopes; but ever since men and women
have loved they have built grand hopes upon very slight foundations. I
determined to put my roadways in order.
My efforts in this direction were really evidence of anything but
thriftiness, for I could not in the least afford to make my drives
and walks resemble the smooth and beautiful roads which wound over the
Havelot estate, although to do this was my intention, and I set about
the work without loss of time. I took up this occupation with so much
earnestness that it seriously interfered with my observations from the
tower.
I hired two men and set them to work to dig a gravel-pit. They made
excavations at several places, and very soon found what they declared
to be a very fine quality of road-gravel. I ordered them to dig on
until they had taken out what they believed to be enough to cover all
my roads. When this had been done, I would have it properly spread and
rolled. As this promised to be a very good job, the men went to work in
fine spirits and evidently made up their minds that the improvements I
desired would require a vast deal of gravel.
When they had dug a hole so deep that it became difficult to throw up
the gravel from the bottom, I suggested that they should dig at some
other place. But to this they objected, declaring that the gravel was
getting better and better, and it would be well to go on down as long as
the quality continued to be so good. So, at last, they put a ladder into
the pit, one man carrying the gravel up in a hod, while the other
dug it; and when they had gone down so deep that this was no longer
practicable, they rigged up a derrick and windlass and drew up the
gravel in a bucket.
Had I been of a more practical turn of mind I might have perceived that
this method of working made the job a very long and, consequently, to
the laborers, a profitable one; but no such idea entered into my head,
and not noticing whether they were bringing up sand or gravel I allowed
them to proceed.
One morning I went out to the spot where the excavation was being made
and found that the men had built a fire on the ground near the opening
of the pit, and that one of them was bending over it warming himself.
As the month was July this naturally surprised me, and I inquired the
reason for so strange a performance.
“Upon my soul,” said the man, who was rubbing his hands over the blaze,
“I do not wonder you are surprised, but it's so cold down at the bottom
of that pit that me fingers is almost frosted; and we haven't struck any
wather neither, which couldn't be expected, of course, a-diggin' down
into the hill like this.”
I looked into the hole and found it was very deep. “I think it would be
better to stop digging here,” said I, “and try some other place.”
“I wouldn't do that just now,” said the other man, who was preparing to
go down in the bucket; “to be sure, it's a good deal more like a well
than a gravel-pit, but it's bigger at the top than at the bottom, and
there's no danger of its cavin' in, and now that we've got everything
rigged up all right, it would be a pity to make a change yet awhile.”
So I let them go on; but the next day when I went out again I found that
they had come to the conclusion that it was time to give up digging in
that hole. They both declared that it almost froze their feet to stand
on the ground where they worked at the bottom of the excavation. The
slow business of drawing up the gravel by means of a bucket and windlass
was, therefore, reluctantly given up. The men now went to work to dig
outward from this pit toward the edge of the bluff which overlooked
my little dell, and gradually made a wide trench, which they deepened
until--and I am afraid to say how long they worked before this was
done--they could walk to the original pit from the level of the dell.
They then deepened the inner end of the trench, wheeling out the gravel
in barrows, until they had made an inclined pathway from the dell to the
bottom of the pit. The wheeling now became difficult, and the men soon
declared that they were sure that they had quite gravel enough.
When they made this announcement, and I had gone into some financial
calculations, I found that I would be obliged to put an end to my
operations, at least for the present, for my available funds were gone,
or would be when I had paid what I owed for the work. The men were
very much disappointed by the sudden ending of this good job, but they
departed, and I was left to gaze upon a vast amount of gravel, of which,
for the present at least, I could not afford to make the slightest use.
The mental despondency which had been somewhat lightened during my
excavating operations now returned, and I became rather more gloomy and
downcast than before. My cook declared that it was of no use to prepare
meals which I never ate, and suggested that it would save money if I
discharged her. As I had not paid her anything for a long time, I did
not see how this would benefit me.
Wandering about one day with my hat pulled down over my eyes and my
hands thrust deep into my pockets, I strolled into the dell and stood
before the wide trench which led to the pit in which I had foolishly
sunk the money which should have supported me for months. I entered this
dismal passage and walked slowly and carefully down the incline until I
reached the bottom of the original pit, where I had never been before.
I stood here looking up and around me and wondering how men could bring
themselves to dig down into such dreary depths simply for the sake of
a few dollars a week, when I involuntarily began to stamp my feet. They
were very cold, although I had not been there more than a minute. I
wondered at this and took up some of the loose gravel in my hand. It was
quite dry, but it chilled my fingers. I did not understand it, and I did
not try to, but walked up the trench and around into the dell, thinking
of Agnes.
I was very fond of milk, which, indeed, was almost the only food I now
cared for, and I was consequently much disappointed at my noonday meal
when I found that the milk had soured and was not fit to drink.
“You see, sir,” said Susan, “ice is very scarce and dear, and we can not
afford to buy much of it. There was no freezin' weather last winter,
and the price has gone up as high as the thermometer, sir, and so,
between the two of 'em, I can't keep things from spoilin'.”
The idea now came to me that if Susan would take the milk, and anything
else she wished to keep cool in this hot weather, to the bottom of the
gravel-pit, she would find the temperature there cold enough to preserve
them without ice, and I told her so.
The next morning Susan came to me with a pleased countenance and said,
“I put the butter and the milk in that pit last night, and the butter's
just as hard and the milk's as sweet as if it had been kept in an
ice-house. But the place is as cold as an ice-house, sir, and unless I
am mistaken, there's ice in it. Anyway, what do you call that?” And she
took from a little basket a piece of grayish ice as large as my fist.
“When I found it was so cold down there, sir,” she said, “I thought
I would dig a little myself and see what made it so; and I took a
fire-shovel and hatchet, and, when I had scraped away some of the
gravel, I came to something hard and chopped off this piece of it, which
is real ice, sir, or I know nothing about it. Perhaps there used to be
an ice-house there, and you might get some of it if you dug, though
why anybody should put it down so deep and then cover it up, I'm sure I
don't know. But as long as there's any there, I think we should get it
out, even if there's only a little of it; for I can not take everything
down to that pit, and we might as well have it in the refrigerator.”
This seemed to me like very good sense, and if I had had a man I should
have ordered him to go down to the pit and dig up any lumps of ice
he might find and bring them to the house. But I had no man, and I
therefore became impressed with the opinion that if I did not want to
drink sour milk for the rest of the summer, it might be a good thing for
me to go down there and dig out some of the ice myself. So with pickaxe
and shovel I went to the bottom of the pit and set myself to work.
A few inches below the surface I found that my shovel struck something
hard, and, clearing away the gravel from this for two or three square
feet, I looked down upon a solid mass of ice. It was dirty and begrimed,
but it was truly ice. With my pick I detached some large pieces of it.
These, with some discomfort, I carried out into the dell where Susan
might come with her basket and get them.
For several days Susan and I took out ice from the pit, and then I
thought that perhaps Tom Burton might feel some interest in this frozen
deposit in my terminal moraine, and so I wrote to him about it. He did
not answer my letter, but instead arrived himself the next afternoon.
“Ice at the bottom of a gravel-pit,” said he, “is a thing I never heard
of. Will you lend me a spade and a pickaxe?”
When Tom came out of that pit--it was too cold a place for me to go with
him and watch his proceedings--I saw him come running toward the house.
“Walter,” he shouted, “we must hire all the men we can find and dig,
dig, dig. If I am not mistaken something has happened on your place that
is wonderful almost beyond belief. But we must not stop to talk. We must
dig, dig, dig; dig all day and dig all night. Don't think of the cost.
I'll attend to that. I'll get the money. What we must do is to find men
and set them to work.”
“What's the matter?” said I. “What has happened?”
“I haven't time to talk about it now; besides I don't want to, for fear
that I should find that I am mistaken. But get on your hat, my dear
fellow, and let's go over to the town for men.”
The next day there were eight men working under the direction of my
friend Burton, and although they did not work at night as he wished
them to do, they labored steadfastly for ten days or more before Tom was
ready to announce what it was he had hoped to discover, and whether or
not he had found it. For a day or two I watched the workmen from time to
time, but after that I kept away, preferring to await the result of
my friend's operations. He evidently expected to find something worth
having, and whether he was successful or not, it suited me better to
know the truth all at once and not by degrees.
On the morning of the eleventh day Tom came into the room where I was
reading and sat down near me. His face was pale, his eyes glittering.
“Old friend,” said he, and as he spoke I noticed that his voice was
a little husky, although it was plain enough that his emotion was not
occasioned by bad fortune--“my good old friend, I have found out what
made the bottom of your gravel-pit so uncomfortably cold. You need not
doubt what I am going to tell you, for my excavations have been complete
and thorough enough to make me sure of what I say. Don't you remember
that I told you that ages ago there was a vast glacier in the country
which stretches from here to the mountains? Well, sir, the foot of that
glacier must have reached further this way than is generally supposed.
At any rate a portion of it did extend in this direction as far as this
bit of the world which is now yours. This end or spur of the glacier,
nearly a quarter of a mile in width, I should say, and pushing before it
a portion of the terminal moraine on which you live, came slowly toward
the valley until suddenly it detached itself from the main glacier and
disappeared from sight. That is to say, my boy”--and as he spoke Tom
sprang to his feet, too excited to sit any longer--“it descended to
the bowels of the earth, at least for a considerable distance in that
direction, Now you want to know how this happened. Well, I'll tell you.
In this part of the country there are scattered about here and there
great caves. Geologists know one or two of them, and it is certain that
there are others undiscovered. Well, sir, your glacier spur discovered
one of them, and when it had lain over the top of it for an age or two,
and had grown bigger and bigger, and heavier and heavier, it at last
burst through the rock roof of the cave, snapping itself from the
rest of the glacier and falling in one vast mass to the bottom of the
subterranean abyss. Walter, it is there now. The rest of the glacier
came steadily down; the moraines were forced before it; they covered
up this glacier spur, this broken fragment, and by the time the climate
changed and the average of temperature rose above that of the glacial
period, this vast sunken mass of ice was packed away below the surface
of the earth, out of the reach of the action of friction, or heat, or
moisture, or anything else which might destroy it. And through all the
long procession of centuries that broken end of the glacier has been
lying in your terminal moraine. It is there now. It is yours, Walter
Cuthbert. It is an ice-mine. It is wealth, and so far as I can make out,
it is nearly all upon your land. To you is the possession, but to me is
the glory of the discovery. A bit of the glacial period kept in a cave
for us! It is too wonderful to believe! Walter, have you any brandy?”
It may well be supposed that by this time I was thoroughly awakened to
the importance and the amazing character of my friend's discovery, and
I hurried with him to the scene of operations. There he explained
everything and showed me how, by digging away a portion of the face of
the bluff, he had found that this vast fragment of the glacier,
which had been so miraculously preserved, ended in an irregularly
perpendicular wall, which extended downward he knew not how far, and the
edge of it on its upper side had been touched by my workmen in digging
their pit. “It was the gradual melting of the upper end of this
glacier,” said Tom, “probably more elevated than the lower end, that
made your dell. I wondered why the depression did not extend further up
toward the spot where the foot of the glacier was supposed to have been.
This end of the fragment, being sunk in deeper and afterward covered up
more completely, probably never melted at all.”
“It is amazing--astounding,” said I; “but what of it, now that we have
found it?”
“What of it?” cried Tom, and his whole form trembled as he spoke. “You
have here a source of wealth, of opulence which shall endure for the
rest of your days. Here at your very door, where it can be taken out and
transported with the least possible trouble, is ice enough to supply the
town, the county, yes, I might say, the State, for hundreds of years.
No, sir, I can not go in to supper. I can not eat. I leave to you the
business and practical part of this affair. I go to report upon its
scientific features.”
“Agnes,” exclaimed, as I walked to the house with my hands clasped and
my eyes raised to the sky, “the glacial period has given thee to me!”
This did not immediately follow, although I went that very night to
Mr. Havelot and declared to him that I was now rich enough to marry his
daughter. He laughed at me in a manner which was very annoying, and made
certain remarks which indicated that he thought it probable that it was
not the roof of the cave, but my mind, which had given way under the
influence of undue pressure.
The contemptuous manner in which I had been received aroused within me a
very unusual state of mind. While talking to Mr. Havelot I heard not
far away in some part of the house a voice singing. It was the voice
of Agnes, and I believed she sang so that I could hear her. But as her
sweet tones reached my ear there came to me at the same time the harsh,
contemptuous words of her father. I left the house determined to crush
that man to the earth beneath a superincumbent mass of ice--or the
evidence of the results of the ownership of such a mass--which would
make him groan and weep as he apologized to me for his scornful and
disrespectful utterances and at the same time offered me the hand of his
daughter.
When the discovery of the ice-mine, as it grew to be called, became
generally known, my grounds were crowded by sightseers, and reporters
of newspapers were more plentiful than squirrels. But the latter were
referred to Burton, who would gladly talk to them as long as they could
afford to listen, and I felt myself at last compelled to shut my gates
to the first.
I had offers of capital to develop this novel source of wealth, and I
accepted enough of this assistance to enable me to begin operations on a
moderate scale. It was considered wise not to uncover any portion of the
glacier spur, but to construct an inclined shaft down to its wall-like
end and from this tunnel into the great mass. Immediately the leading
ice company of the neighboring town contracted with me for all the ice I
could furnish, and the flood-gates of affluence began slowly to rise.
The earliest, and certainly one of the greatest, benefits which came
to me from this bequest from the unhistoric past was the new energy and
vigor with which my mind and body were now infused. My old, careless
method of life and my recent melancholy, despairing mood were gone, and
I now began to employ myself upon the main object of my life with an
energy and enthusiasm almost equal to that of my friend, Tom Burton.
This present object of my life was to prepare my home for Agnes.
The great piles of gravel which my men had dug from the well-like pit
were spread upon the roadways and rolled smooth and hard; my lawn was
mowed; my flower-beds and borders put in order; useless bushes and
undergrowth cut out and cleared away; my outbuildings were repaired
and the grounds around my house rapidly assumed their old appearance of
neatness and beauty.
Ice was very scarce that summer, and, as the wagons wound away from the
opening of the shaft which led down to the glacier, carrying their loads
to the nearest railway station, so money came to me; not in large sums
at first, for preparations had not yet been perfected for taking out the
ice in great quantities, but enough to enable me to go on with my work
as rapidly as I could plan it. I set about renovating and brightening
and newly furnishing my house. Whatever I thought that Agnes would
like I bought and put into it. I tried to put myself in her place as I
selected the paper-hangings and the materials with which to cover the
furniture.
Sometimes, while thus employed selecting ornaments or useful articles
for my house, and using as far as was possible the taste and judgment
of another instead of my own, the idea came to me that perhaps Agnes had
never heard of my miraculous good fortune. Certainly her father would
not be likely to inform her, and perhaps she still thought of me, if she
thought at all, as the poor young man from whom she had been obliged to
part because he was poor.
But whether she knew that I was growing rich, or whether she thought I
was becoming poorer and poorer, I thought only of the day when I could
go to her father and tell him that I was able to take his daughter and
place her in a home as beautiful as that in which she now lived, and
maintain her with all the comforts and luxuries which he could give her.
One day I asked my faithful cook, who also acted as my housekeeper and
general supervisor, to assist me in making out a list of china which I
intended to purchase.
“Are you thinking of buying china, sir?” she asked. “We have now quite
as much as we really need.”
“Oh, yes,” said I, “I shall get complete sets of everything that can be
required for a properly furnished household.”
Susan gave a little sigh. “You are spendin' a lot of money, sir, and
some of it for things that a single gentleman would be likely not to
care very much about; and if you was to take it into your head to travel
and stay away for a year or two, there's a good many things you've
bought that would look shabby when you come back, no matter how careful
I might be in dustin' 'em and keepin' 'em covered.”
“But I have no idea of traveling,” said I. “There's no place so pleasant
as this to me.”
Susan was silent for a few moments, and then she said: “I know very well
why you are doing all this, and I feel it my bounden duty to say to you
that there's a chance of its bein' no use. I do not speak without good
reason, and I would not do it if I didn't think that it might make
trouble lighter to you when it comes.”
“What are you talking about, Susan; what do you mean?”
“Well, sir, this is what I mean: It was only last night that my daughter
Jane was in Mr. Havelot's dining-room after dinner was over, and Mr.
Havelot and a friend of his were sitting there, smoking their cigars and
drinking their coffee. She went in and come out again as she was busy
takin' away the dishes, and they paid no attention to her, but went on
talkin' without knowing, most likely, she was there. Mr. Have-lot and
the gentleman were talkin' about you, and Jane she heard Mr. Havelot say
as plain as anything, and she said she couldn't be mistaken, that even
if your nonsensical ice-mine proved to be worth anything, he would
never let his daughter marry an ice-man. He spoke most disrespectful of
ice-men, sir, and said that it would make him sick to have a son-in-law
whose business it was to sell ice to butchers, and hotels, and
grog-shops, and pork-packers, and all that sort of people, and that he
would as soon have his daughter marry the man who supplied a hotel with
sausages as the one who supplied it with ice to keep those sausages from
spoiling. You see, sir, Mr. Havelot lives on his property as his father
did before him, and he is a very proud man, with a heart as hard and
cold as that ice down under your land; and it's borne in on me very
strong, sir, that it would be a bad thing for you to keep on thinkin'
that you are gettin' this house all ready to bring Miss Havelot to when
you have married her. For if Mr. Havelot keeps on livin', which there's
every chance of his doin', it may be many a weary year before you get
Miss Agnes, if you ever get her. And havin' said that, sir, I say no
more, and I would not have said this much if I hadn't felt it my bounden
duty to your father's son to warn him that most likely he was workin'
for what he might never get, and so keep him from breakin' his heart
when he found out the truth all of a sudden.”
With that Susan left me, without offering any assistance in making out a
list of china. This was a terrible story; but, after all, it was founded
only upon servants' gossip. In this country, even proud, rich men like
Mr. Havelot did not have such absurd ideas regarding the source of
wealth. Money is money, and whether it is derived from the ordinary
products of the earth, from which came much of Mr. Havelot's revenue,
or from an extraordinary project such as my glacier spur, it truly could
not matter so far as concerned the standing in society of its possessor.
What utter absurdity was this which Susan had told me! If I were to go
to Mr. Havelot and tell him that I would not marry his daughter because
he supplied brewers and bakers with the products of his fields, would he
not consider me an idiot? I determined to pay no attention to the idle
tale. But alas! determinations of that sort are often of little avail. I
did pay attention to it, and my spirits drooped.
The tunnel into the glacier spur had now attained considerable length,
and the ice in the interior was found to be of a much finer quality than
that first met with, which was of a grayish hue and somewhat inclined to
crumble. When the workmen reached a grade of ice as good as they could
expect, they began to enlarge the tunnel into a chamber, and from this
they proposed to extend tunnels in various directions after the fashion
of a coal-mine. The ice was hauled out on sledges through the tunnel and
then carried up a wooden railway to the mouth of the shaft.
It was comparatively easy to walk down the shaft and enter the tunnel,
and when it happened that the men were not at work I allowed visitors
to go down and view this wonderful ice-cavern. The walls of the chamber
appeared semi-transparent, and the light of the candles or lanterns gave
the whole scene a weird and beautiful aspect. It was almost possible
to imagine one's self surrounded by limpid waters, which might at any
moment rush upon him and ingulf him.
Every day or two Tom Burton came with a party of scientific visitors,
and had I chosen to stop the work of taking out ice, admitted the public
and charged a price for admission, I might have made almost as much
money as I at that time derived from the sale of the ice. But such a
method of profit was repugnant to me.
For several days after Susan's communication to me I worked on in my
various operations, endeavoring to banish from my mind the idle nonsense
she had spoken of; but one of its effects upon me was to make me feel
that I ought not to allow hopes so important to rest upon uncertainties.
So I determined that as soon as my house and grounds should be in a
condition with which I should for the time be satisfied, I would go
boldly to Mr. Havelot, and, casting out of my recollection everything
that Susan had said, invite him to visit me and see for himself the
results of the discovery of which he had spoken with such derisive
contempt. This would be a straightforward and business-like answer to
his foolish objections to me, and I believed that in his heart the old
gentleman would properly appreciate my action.
About this time there came to my place Aaron Boyce, an elderly farmer of
the neighborhood, and, finding me outside, he seized the opportunity to
have a chat with me.
“I tell you what it is, Mr. Cuthbert,” said he, “the people in this
neighborhood hasn't give you credit for what's in you. The way you
have fixed up this place, and the short time you have took to do it, is
enough to show us now what sort of a man you are; and I tell you, sir,
we're proud of you for a neighbor. I don't believe there's another
gentleman in this county of your age that could have done what you have
done in so short a time. I expect now you will be thinking of getting
married and startin' housekeepin' in a regular fashion. That comes just
as natural as to set hens in the spring. By the way, have you heard that
old Mr. Havelot's thinkin' of goin' abroad? I didn't believe he would
ever do that again, because he's gettin' pretty well on in years, but
old men will do queer things as well as young ones.”
“Going abroad!” I cried. “Does he intend to take his daughter with
him?”
Mr. Aaron Boyce smiled grimly. He was a great old gossip, and he had
already obtained the information he wanted. “Yes,” he said, “I've heard
it was on her account he's going. She's been kind of weakly lately, they
tell me, and hasn't took to her food, and the doctors has said that what
she wants is a sea voyage and a change to foreign parts.”
Going abroad! Foreign parts! This was more terrible than anything I had
imagined. I would go to Mr. Havelot that very evening, the only time
which I would be certain to find him at home, and talk to him in a way
which would be sure to bring him to his senses, if he had any. And if
I should find that he had no sense of propriety or justice, no sense of
his duty to his fellow-man and to his offspring, then I would begin a
bold fight for Agnes, a fight which I would not give up until, with her
own lips, she told me that it would be useless. I would follow her to
Kentucky, to Europe, to the uttermost ends of the earth. I could do it
now. The frozen deposits in my terminal moraine would furnish me with
the means. I walked away and left the old farmer standing grinning. No
doubt my improvements and renovations had been the subject of gossip
in the neighborhood, and he had come over to see if he could find out
anything definite in regard to the object of them. He had succeeded, but
he had done more: he had nerved me to instantly begin the conquest of
Agnes, whether by diplomacy or war.
I was so anxious to begin this conquest that I could scarcely wait for
the evening to come. At the noon hour, when the ice-works were deserted,
I walked down the shaft and into the ice-chamber to see what had been
done since my last visit. I decided to insist that operations upon a
larger scale should be immediately begun, in order that I might have
plenty of money with which to carry on my contemplated campaign. Whether
it was one of peace or war, I should want all the money I could get.
I took with me a lantern and went around the chamber, which was now
twenty-five or thirty feet in diameter, examining the new inroads which
had been made upon its walls. There was a tunnel commenced opposite the
one by which the chamber was entered, but it had not been opened more
than a dozen feet, and it seemed to me that the men had not been working
with any very great energy. I wanted to see a continuous stream of
ice-blocks from that chamber to the mouth of the shaft.
While grumbling thus I heard behind me a sudden noise like thunder and
the crashing of walls, and, turning quickly, I saw that a portion of
the roof of the chamber had fallen in. Nor had it ceased to fall. As
I gazed, several great masses of ice came down from above and piled
themselves upon that which had already fallen.
Startled and frightened, I sprang toward the opening of the entrance
tunnel; but, alas! I found that that was the point where the roof had
given way, and between me and the outer world was a wall of solid ice
through which it would be as impossible for me to break as if it were a
barrier of rock. With the quick instinct which comes to men in danger I
glanced about to see if the workmen had left their tools; but there were
none.
They had been taken outside. Then I stood and gazed stupidly at the
mass of fallen ice, which, even as I looked upon it, was cracking and
snapping, pressed down by the weight above it, and forming itself into
an impervious barrier without crevice or open seam.
Then I madly shouted. But of what avail were shouts down there in the
depths of the earth? I soon ceased this useless expenditure of strength,
and, with my lantern in my hand, began to walk around the chamber,
throwing the light upon the walls and the roof. I became impressed with
the fear that the whole cavity might cave in at once and bury me here
in a tomb of ice. But I saw no cracks, nor any sign of further disaster.
But why think of anything more? Was not this enough? For, before that
ice-barrier could be cleared away, would I not freeze to death?
I now continued to walk, not because I expected to find anything or do
anything, but simply to keep myself warm by action. As long as I could
move about I believed that there was no immediate danger of succumbing
to the intense cold; for, when a young man, traveling in Switzerland, I
had been in the cave of a glacier, and it was not cold enough to prevent
some old women from sitting there to play the zither for the sake of
a few coppers from visitors. I could not expect to be able to continue
walking until I should be rescued, and if I sat down, or by chance slept
from exhaustion, I must perish.
The more I thought of it, the more sure I became that in any case I must
perish, A man in a block of ice could have no chance of life. And Agnes!
Oh, Heavens! what demon of the ice had leagued with old Havelot to shut
me up in this frozen prison? For a long time I continued to walk, beat
my body with my arms and stamp my feet. The instinct of life was strong
within me. I would live as long as I could, and think of Agnes. When I
should be frozen I could not think of her.
Sometimes I stopped and listened. I was sure I could hear noises, but I
could not tell whether they were above me or not. In the centre of the
ice-barrier, about four feet from the ground, was a vast block of the
frozen substance which was unusually clear and seemed to have nothing on
the other side of it; for through it I could see flickers of light, as
though people were going about with lanterns. It was quite certain that
the accident had been discovered; for, had not the thundering noise been
heard by persons outside, the workmen would have seen what had
happened as soon as they came into the tunnel to begin their afternoon
operations.
At first I wondered why they did not set to work with a will and cut
away this barrier and let me out. But there suddenly came to my mind
a reason for this lack of energy which was more chilling than the
glistening walls around me: Why should they suppose that I was in the
ice-chamber? I was not in the habit of coming here very often, but I was
in the habit of wandering off by myself at all hours of the day. This
thought made me feel that I might as well lie down on the floor of this
awful cave and die at once. The workmen might think it unsafe to mine
any further in this part of the glacier, and begin operations at some
other point. I did sit down for a moment, and then I rose involuntarily
and began my weary round. Suddenly I thought of looking at my watch.
It was nearly five o'clock. I had been more than four hours in that
dreadful place, and I did not believe that I could continue to exercise
my limbs very much longer. The lights I had seen had ceased. It was
quite plain that the workmen had no idea that any one was imprisoned in
the cave.
But soon after I had come to this conclusion I saw through the clear
block of ice a speck of light, and it became stronger and stronger,
until I believed it to be close to the other side of the block. There it
remained stationary; but there seemed to be other points of light which
moved about in a strange way, and near it. Now I stood by the block
watching. When my feet became very cold, I stamped them; but there I
stood fascinated, for what I saw was truly surprising. A large coal of
fire appeared on the other side of the block; then it suddenly vanished
and was succeeded by another coal. This disappeared, and another took
its place, each one seeming to come nearer and nearer to me. Again and
again did these coals appear. They reached the centre of the block; they
approached my side of it. At last one was so near to me that I thought
it was about to break through, but it vanished. Then there came a few
quick thuds and the end of a piece of iron protruded from the block.
This was withdrawn, and through the aperture there came a voice which
said: “Mr. Cuthbert, are you in there?” It was the voice of Agnes!
Weak and cold as I was, fire and energy rushed through me at these
words. “Yes,” I exclaimed, my mouth to the hole; “Agnes, is that you?”
“Wait a minute,” came from the other side of the aperture. “I must make
it bigger. I must keep it from closing up.”
Again came the coals of fire, running backward and forward through the
long hole in the block of ice. I could see now what they were. They were
irons used by plumbers for melting solder and that sort of thing,
and Agnes was probably heating them in a little furnace outside, and
withdrawing them as fast as they cooled. It was not long before the
aperture was very much enlarged; and then there came grating through
it a long tin tube nearly two inches in diameter, which almost, but not
quite, reached my side of the block.
Now came again the voice of Agnes: “Oh, Mr. Cuthbert, are you truly
there? Are you crushed? Are you wounded? Are you nearly frozen? Are you
starved? Tell me quickly if you are yet safe.”
Had I stood in a palace padded with the softest silk and filled with
spicy odors from a thousand rose gardens, I could not have been better
satisfied with my surroundings than I was at that moment. Agnes was not
two feet away! She was telling me that she cared for me! In a very few
words I assured her that I was uninjured. Then I was on the point of
telling her I loved her, for I believed that not a moment should be lost
in making this avowal. I could not die without her knowing that. But the
appearance of a mass of paper at the other end of the tube prevented
the expression of my sentiments. This was slowly pushed on until I
could reach it. Then there came the words: “Mr. Cuthbert, these are
sandwiches. Eat them immediately and walk about while you are doing it.
You must keep yourself warm until the men get to you.”
Obedient to the slightest wish of this dear creature, I went twice
around the cave, devouring the sandwiches as I walked. They were the
most delicious food that I had ever tasted. They were given to me by
Agnes. I came back to the opening. I could not immediately begin my
avowal. I must ask a question first. “Can they get to me?” I inquired.
“Is anybody trying to do that? Are they working there by you? I do not
hear them at all.”
“Oh, no,” she answered; “they are not working here. They are on top of
the bluff, trying to dig down to you. They were afraid to meddle with
the ice here for fear that more of it might come down and crush you
and the men, too. Oh, there has been a dreadful excitement since it was
found that you were in there!”
“How could they know I was here?” I asked.
“It was your old Susan who first thought of it. She saw you walking
toward the shaft about noon, and then she remembered that she had not
seen you again; and when they came into the tunnel here they found one
of the lanterns gone and the big stick you generally carry lying where
the lantern had been. Then it was known that you must be inside. Oh,
then there was an awful time! The foreman of the ice-men examined
everything, and said they must dig down to you from above. He put his
men to work; but they could do very little, for they had hardly any
spades. Then they sent into town for help and over to the new park for
the Italians working there. From the way these men set to work you might
have thought that they would dig away the whole bluff in about five
minutes; but they didn't. Nobody seemed to know what to do, or how to
get to work; and the hole they made when they did begin was filled up
with men almost as fast as they even threw out the stones and gravel. I
don't believe anything would have been done properly if your friend, Mr.
Burton, hadn't happened to come with two scientific gentlemen, and since
that he has been directing everything. You can't think what a splendid
fellow he is! I fairly adored him when I saw him giving his orders and
making everybody skip around in the right way.”
“Tom is a very good man,” said I; “but it is his business to direct that
sort of work, and it is not surprising that he knows how to do it. But,
Agnes, they may never get down to me, and we do not know that this roof
may not cave in upon me at any moment; and before this or anything else
happens I want to tell you--”