A CATASTROPHE.
“You disparage these scenes,” said Stevens, after several moments had
been given to the survey of that before him, “and yet you have drawn
your inspiration from them--the fresh food which stimulates poetry and
strengthens enthusiasm. Here you learned to be contemplative; and here,
in solitude, was your genius nursed. Do not be ungrateful, Margaret--you
owe to these very scenes all that you are, and all that you may become.”
“Stay! before I answer. Do you see yon bird?”
“Where?”
“In the west--there!” she pointed with her fingers, catching his
wrist unconsciously, at the same time, with the other hand, as if more
certainly to direct his gaze.
“I see it--what bird is it?”
“An eagle! See how it soars and swings; effortless, as if supported by
some external power!”
“Indeed--it seems small for an eagle.”
“It is one nevertheless! There are thousands of them that roost among
the hills in that quarter. I know the place thoroughly. The heights are
the greatest that we have in the surrounding country. The distance from
this spot is about five miles. He, no doubt, has some fish, or bird now
within his talons, with which to feed his young. He will feed them, and
they will grow strong, and will finally use their own wings. Shall he
continue to feed them after that? Must they never seek their own food?”
“Surely they must.”
“If these solitudes have nursed me, must they continue to nurse me
always? Must I never use the wings to which they have given vigor? Must
I never employ the sight to which they have imparted vigilance? Must I
never go forth, and strive and soar, and make air, and earth, and sea,
tributary to my wing and eye? Alas! I am a woman!--and her name is
weakness! You tell me of what I am, and of what I may become. But what
am I? I mock myself too often with this question to believe all your
fine speeches. And what may I become? Alas! who can tell me that? I know
my strength, but I also know my weakness. I feel the burning thoughts
of my brain; I feel the yearning impulses in my heart; but they bring
nothing--they promise nothing--I feel the pang of constant denial. I
feel that I can be nothing!”
“Say not so, Margaret--think not so, I beseech you. With your genius,
your enthusiasm--your powers of expression--there is nothing, becoming
in your sex, and worthy of it, which you may not be.”
“You can not deceive me! It might be so, if this were Italy; there,
where the very peasant burns with passion, and breathes his feeblest
and meanest thoughts and desires in song. But here, they already call
me mad! They look on me as one doomed to Bedlam. They avoid me with
sentiments and looks of distrust, if not of fear; and when I am looking
into the cloud, striving to pierce, with dilating eye its wild yellow
flashing centres, they draw their flaxen-headed infants to their
breasts, and mutter their thanks to God, that he has not, in a fit of
wrath, made them to resemble me! If, forgetful of earth, and trees,
and the human stocks around me, I pour forth the language of the great
song-masters, they grin at my insanity--they hold me incapable of
reason, and declare their ideas of what that is, by asking who
knows most of the dairy, the cabbage-patch, the spinning-wheel, the
darning-needle--who can best wash Polly's or Patty's face and comb its
head--can chop up sausage-meat the finest--make the lightest paste, and
more economically dispense the sugar in serving up the tea! and these
are what is expected of woman! These duties of the meanest slave! From
her mind nothing is expected. Her enthusiasm terrifies, her energy
offends, and if her taste is ever challenged, it is to the figures upon
a quilt or in a flower-garden, where the passion seems to be to make
flowers grow in stars, and hearts, and crescents. What has woman to
expect where such are the laws; where such are the expectations from
her? What am I to hope? I, who seem to be set apart--to feel nothing
like the rest--to live in a different world--to dream of foreign
things--to burn with a hope which to them is frenzy, and speak a
language which they neither understand nor like! What can I be, in such
a world? Nothing, nothing! I do not deceive myself. I can never hope to
be anything.”
Her enthusiasm hurried her forward. In spite of himself, Stevens was
impressed. He ceased to think of his evil purposes in the superior
thoughts which her wild, unregulated energy inspired. He scarcely
wondered, indeed--if it were true--that her neighbors fancied
her insane. The indignation of a powerful mind denied--denied
justice--baffled in its aims--conscious of the importance of all
its struggles against binding and blinding circumstances--is akin to
insanity!--is apt to express itself in the defiant tones of a fierce and
feverish frenzy.
“Margaret,” said he, as she paused and waited for him, “you are not
right in everything. You forget that your lonely little village of
Charlemont, is not only not the world, but that it is not even an
American world. America is not Italy, I grant you, nor likely soon to
become so; but if you fancy there are not cities even in our country,
where genius such as yours would be felt and worshipped, you are
mistaken.”
“Do you believe there are such?” she demanded incredulously.
“I KNOW there are!”
“No! no! I know better. You can not deceive me. It can not be so. I know
the sort of genius which is popular in those cities. It is the gentleman
and lady genius. Look at their verses for example. I can show you
thousands of such things that come to us here, from all quarters of the
Union--verses written by nice people--people of small tastes and petty
invention, who would not venture upon the utterance of a noble
feeling, or a bold sentiment of originality, for fear of startling the
fashionable nerves with the strong words which such a novelty would
require. Consider, in the first place, how conclusive it is of the
feeblest sort of genius that these people should employ themselves,
from morning to night, in spinning their small strains, scraps of verse,
song, and sonnet, and invariably on such subjects of commonplace, as can
not admit of originality, and do not therefore task reflection. Not
an infant dies or is born, but is made the subject of verse; nay, its
smiles and tears are put on record; its hobby-horse, and its infant
ideas as they begin to bud and breathe aloud. Then comes the eternal
strain about summer blooms and spring flowers; autumn's melancholy and
winter's storms, until one sickens of the intolerable monotony. Such
are the things that your great cities demand. Such things content
them. Speak the fearless and always strange language of originality and
strength, and you confound and terrify them.”
“But, Margaret, these things are held at precisely the same value in the
big cities as they are held by you here in Charlemont. The intelligent
people smile--they do not applaud. If they encourage at all it is by
silence.”
“No! no! that you might say, if, unhappily, public opinion did not
express itself. The same magazines which bring us the verses bring us
the criticism.”
“That is to say, the editor puffs his contributors, and disparages those
who are not. Look at the rival journal and you will find these denounced
and another set praised and beplastered.”
“Ah! and what would be my hope, my safety, in communities which tolerate
these things; in which the number of just and sensible people is so
small that they dare not speak, or can not influence those who have
better courage? Where would be my triumphs? I, who would no more
subscribe to the petty tyranny of conventional law, than to that baser
despotism which is wielded by a mercenary editor, in the absence of a
stern justice in the popular mind. Here I may pine to death--there, my
heart would burst with its own convulsions.”
“No! Margaret, no! It is because they have not the genius, that such
small birds are let to sing. Let them but hear the true minstrel--let
them but know that there is a muse, and how soon would the senseless
twitter which they now tolerate be hushed in undisturbing silence.
In the absence of better birds they bear with what they have. In the
absence of the true muse they build no temple--they throng not to hear.
Nay, even now, already, they look to the west for the minstrel and the
muse--to these very woods. There is a tacit and universal feeling in the
Atlantic country, that leads them to look with expectation to the Great
West, for the genius whose song is to give us fame. 'When?' is the
difficult--the only question. Ah! might I but say to them--'now'--the
muse is already here!”
He took her hand--she did not withhold it; but her look was subdued--the
fires had left her eyes--her whole frame trembled with the recoil of
those feelings--the relaxation of those nerves--the tension of which we
have endeavored feebly to display. Her cheek was no longer flushed but
pale; her lips trembled--her voice was low and faint--only a broken and
imperfect murmur; and her glance was cast upon the ground.
“You!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, I! Have I not said I am not altogether what I seem? Ah! I may not
yet say more. But I am not without power, Margaret, in other and more
powerful regions. I too have had my triumphs; I too can boast that the
minds of other men hang for judgment upon the utterance of mine.”
She looked upward to his glance with a stranger expression of timidity
than her features had before exhibited. The form of Stevens had
insensibly risen in seeming elevation as he spoke, and the expression of
his face was that of a more human pride. He continued:--
“My voice is one of authority in circles where yours would be one of
equal attraction and command. I can not promise you an Italian devotion,
Margaret; our people, though sufficiently enthusiastic, are too sensible
to ridicule to let the heart and blood speak out with such freedom as
they use in the warmer regions of the South: but the homage will be more
intellectual, more steady, and the fame more enduring. You must let your
song be heard--you must give me the sweet privilege of making it known
to ears whose very listening is fame.”
“Ah!” she said, “what you say makes me feel how foolishly I have spoken.
What is my song? what have I done? what am I? what have I to hope?
I have done nothing--I am nothing! I have suffered, like a child, a
miserable vanity to delude me, and I have poured into the ears of a
stranger those ravings which I have hitherto uttered to the hills and
forests. You laugh at me now--you must.”
The paleness on her cheek was succeeded by the deepest flush of crimson.
She withdrew her hand from his grasp.
“Laugh at you, Margaret! You have awakened my wonder. Struck with you
when we first met--”
“Nay, no more of that, but let us follow these windings; they lead us to
the tarn. It is the prettiest Indian path, and my favorite spot. Here
I ramble morning and eve, and try to forget those vain imaginings and
foolish strivings of thought which I have just inflicted upon you. The
habit proved too much for my prudence, and I spoke as if you were not
present. Possibly, had you not spoken in reply, I should have continued
until now.”
“Why did I speak?”
“Ah! it is better. I wish you had spoken sooner. But follow me quickly.
The sunlight is now falling in a particular line which gives us the
loveliest effect, shooting its rays through certain fissures of the
rock, and making a perfect arrow-path along the water. You would fancy
that Apollo had just dismissed a golden shaft from his quiver, so direct
is the levelled light along the surface of the lake.”
Speaking thus, they came in sight of the party on the opposite hills,
as we have already shown--without, however, perceiving them in turn. It
will be conjectured without difficulty that, with a nature so full of
impulse, so excitable, as that of Margaret Cooper--particularly in the
company of an adroit man like Stevens, whose purpose was to encourage
her in that language and feeling of egotism which, while it was the most
grateful exercise to herself, was that which most effectually served to
blind her to his designs--her action was always animated, expressively
adapting itself, not only to the words she uttered, but, even when she
did not speak, to the feelings by which she was governed. It was the art
of Stevens to say little except by suggestives. A single word, or
brief sentence, from his lips, judiciously applied to her sentiments or
situation, readily excited her to speech; and this utterance necessarily
brought with it the secret of her soul, the desire of her heart, nay,
the very shape of the delusion which possessed it. The wily libertine,
deliberate as the demon to which we have likened him, could provoke the
warmth which he did not share--could stimulate the eloquence which
he would not feel--could coldly, like some Mephistopheles of science,
subject the golden-winged bird or butterfly to the torturous process of
examination, with a pin thrust through its vitals, and gravely dilate
on its properties, its rich plumage, and elaborate finish of detail,
without giving heed to those writhings which declared its agonies. It is
not meant to be understood that Stevens found no pleasure himself in the
display of that wild, unschooled imagination which was the prevailing
quality in the mind of Margaret Cooper. He was a man of education and
taste. He could be pleased as an amateur; but he wanted the moral to be
touched, and to sympathize with a being so gifted and so feeble--so high
aiming, yet so liable to fall.
The ardor of Margaret Cooper, and the profound devotion which it was
the policy of Stevens to display, necessarily established their
acquaintance, in a very short time, on the closest footing of
familiarity. With a nature such as hers, all that is wanted is
sympathy--all that she craves is sympathy--and, to win this, no toil is
too great, no sufferance too severe; alas, how frequently do we see that
no penalty is too discouraging! But the confiding spirit never looks for
penalties, and seldom dreams of deceit.
What, then, were the emotions of William Hinkley as he beheld the
cordiality which distinguished the manner of Margaret Cooper as she
approached the edge of the lake with her companion? In the space of a
single week, this stranger had made greater progress in her acquaintance
than HE had been able to make in a period of years. The problem which
distressed him was beyond his power to solve. His heart was very full;
the moisture was already in his eyes; and when he beheld the animated
gestures of the maid--when he saw her turn to her companion, and
meet his gaze without shrinking, while her own was fixed in gratified
contemplation--he scarcely restrained himself from jumping to his feet.
The old man saw his emotion.
“William,” he said, “did I understand you that this young stranger was a
preacher?”
“No, sir, but he seeks to be one. He is studying for the ministry, under
Brother Cross.”
“Brother Cross is a good man, and is scarcely likely to have anything to
do with any other than good men. I suppose he knows everything about the
stranger?”
William Hinkley narrated all that was known on the subject in the
village. In the innocence of his heart, Brother Cross had described
Alfred Stevens as a monument of his own powers of conversion. Under
God, he had been a blessed instrument for plucking this brand from
the burning. A modified account of the brandy-flask accompanied the
narrative. Whether it was that Mr. Calvert, who had been a man of the
world, saw something in the story itself, and in the ludicrousness of
the event, which awakened his suspicions, or whether the carriage of
Alfred Stevens, as he walked with Margaret Cooper, was rather that of a
young gallant than a young student in theology, may admit of question;
but it was very certain that the suspicions of the old gentleman were
somewhat awakened.
Believing himself to be alone with his fair companion, Alfred Stevens
was not as scrupulous of the rigidity of manner which, if not actually
prescribed to persons occupying his professional position, is certainly
expected from them; and, by a thousand little acts of gallantry, he
proved himself much more at home as a courtier and a ladies' man than as
one filled with the overflow of divine grace, and thoughtful of nothing
less than the serious earnest of his own soul. His hand was promptly
extended to assist the progress of his fair companion--a service which
was singularly unnecessary in the case of one to whom daily rambles,
over hill and through forest, had imparted a most unfeminine degree
of vigor. Now he broke the branch away from before her path; and now,
stooping suddenly, he gathered for her the pale flower of autumn.
These little acts of courtesy, so natural to the gentleman, were
anything but natural to one suddenly impressed with the ascetical temper
of methodism. Highly becoming in both instances, they were yet strangely
at variance with the straight-laced practices of the thoroughgoing
Wesleyan, who sometimes fancies that the condition of souls is so
desperate as to leave no time for good manners. Mr. Calvert had no
fault to find with Stevens's civility, but there was certainly an
inconsistency between his deportment now, and those characteristics
which were to be predicated of the manner and mode of his very recent
conversion. Besides, there was the story of the brandy-flask, in which
Calvert saw much less of honor either to John Cross or his neophyte. But
the old man did not express his doubts to his young friend, and they
sat together, watching, in a silence only occasionally broken by a
monosyllable, the progress of the unconscious couple below.
Meanwhile, our fisherman, occupying his lonely perch just above the
stream, had been plying his vocation with all the silent diligence of
one to the manner born. Once busy with his angle, and his world equally
of thought and observation became confined to the stream before his
eyes, and the victim before his imagination. Scarcely seen by his
companions on the heights above, he had succeeded in taking several very
fine fish; and had his liberality been limited to the supper-table of
his venerable friend Calvert, he would long before have given himself
respite, and temporary immunity to the rest of the finny tribe remaining
in the tarn. But Ned Hinkley thought of all his neighbors, not omitting
the two rival widows, Mesdames Cooper and Thackeray.
Something too, there was in the sport, which, on the present occasion,
beguiled him rather longer than his wont. More than once had his eye
detected, from the advantageous and jutting rock where he lay concealed,
just above the water, the dark outlines of a fish, one of the largest he
had ever seen in the lake, whose brown sides, and occasionally flashing
fins, excited his imagination and offered a challenge to his skill,
which provoked him into something like a feeling of personal hostility.
The fish moved slowly to and fro, not often in sight, but at such
regularly-recurring periods as to keep up the exciting desire which his
very first appearance had awakened in the mind of his enemy.
To Ned Hinkley he was the beau-ideal of the trout genius. He was
certainly the hermit-trout of the tarn. Such coolness, such strength,
such size, such an outline, and then such sagacity. That trout was
a triton among his brethren. A sort of Dr. Johnson among fishes. Ned
Hinkley could imagine--for on such subjects his imagination kindled--how
like an oracle must be the words of such a trout, to his brethren,
gathering in council in their deep-down hole--or driven by a shower
under the cypress log--or in any other situation in which an oracle
would be apt to say, looking around him with fierceness mingled
with contempt, “Let no dog bark.” Ned Hinkley could also fancy the
contemplations of such a trout as he witnessed the efforts made to
beguile him out of the water.
“Not to be caught by a fly like that, my lad!” and precisely as if
the trout had spoken what was certainly whispered in his own mind, the
fisherman silently changed his gilded, glittering figure on his hook for
one of browner plumage--one of the autumn tribe of flies which stoop to
the water from the overhanging trees, and glide off for twenty paces in
the stream, to dart up again to the trees, in as many seconds, if not
swallowed by some watchful fisher-trout, like the one then before the
eyes of our companion.
Though his fancy had become excited, Ned Hinkley was not impatient.
With a cautious hand he conducted the fly down the stream with the
flickering, fidgety motion which the real insect would have employed.
The keen-nosed trout turned with the movements of the fly, but
philosophically kept aloof. Now he might be seen to sink, now to rise,
now he glided close under the rock where the angler reclined, and, even
in the very deep waters which were there, which were consequently very
dark, so great was the size of the animal, that its brown outline was
yet to be seen, with its slightly-waving tail, and at moments the flash
of its glittering eye, as, inclining on its side, it glanced cunningly
upward through the water.
Again did Ned Hinkley consult his resources. Fly after fly was taken
from his box, and suffered to glide upon the stream. The wary fish did
not fail to bestow some degree of attention upon each, but his regards
were too deliberate for the success of the angler, and he had almost
began to despair, when he observed a slight quivering movement in the
object of pursuit which usually prepares the good sportsman to expect
his prey. The fins were laid aback. The motion of the fish became
steady; a slight vibration of the tail only was visible; and in another
moment he darted, and was hooked.
Then came the struggle. Ned Hinkley had never met with a more formidable
prey. The reel was freely given, but the strain was great upon shaft and
line. There was no such thing as contending. The trout had his way, and
went down and off, though it might have been observed that the fisherman
took good care to baffle his efforts to retreat in the direction of the
old log which had harbored him, and the tangling alders, which might
have been his safest places of retreat. The fish carried a long stretch
of line, but the hook was still in his jaws, and this little annoyance
soon led him upon other courses. The line became relaxed, and with this
sign, Ned Hinkley began to amuse himself in tiring his victim.
This required skill and promptness rather than strength. The
hermit-trout was led to and fro by a judicious turn of wrist or elbow.
His efforts had subsided to a few spasmodic struggles--an occasional
struggle ending with a shiver, and then he was brought to the surface.
This was followed by a last great convulsive effort, when his tail
churned the water into a little circle of foam, which disappeared the
moment his struggles were over. But a few seconds more were necessary to
lift the prey into sight of all the parties near to the lake. They had
seen some of the struggle, and had imagined the rest. Neither Margaret
Cooper nor Stevens had suspected the presence of the fisherman until
drawn to the spot by this trial of strength.
“What a prodigious fish!” exclaimed Stevens; “can we go to the spot?”
“Oh! easily--up the rocks on the left there is a path. I know it well.
I have traversed it often. Will you go? The view is very fine from that
quarter.”
“Surely: but who is the fisherman?”
“Ned Hinkley, the nephew of the gentleman with whom you stay. He is
a hunter, fisherman, musician--everything. A lively, simple, but
well-meaning young person. It is something strange that his cousin
William Hinkley is not with him. They are usually inseparable.”
And with these words she led the way for her companion following the
edge of the lake until reaching the point where the rocks seemed to form
barriers to their further progress, but which her agility and energy had
long since enabled her to overcome.
“A bold damsel!” said Calvert, as he viewed her progress. “She certainly
does not intend to clamber over that range of precipices. She will peril
her life.”
“No!” said William Hinkley; “she has done it often to my great terror. I
have been with her more than once over the spot myself. She seems to me
to have no fear, and to delight in the most dangerous places.”
“But her companion! If he's not a more active man than he seems he will
hardly succeed so well.”
William was silent, his eye watching with the keenest interest the
progress of the two. In a few moments he started to his feet with some
appearance of surprise.
“What's the matter?” demanded Calvert.
“She does not seem as if she wished to ascend the rocks, but she's
aiming to keep along the ledges that overhang the stream, so as to get
where Ned is. That can hardly be done by the surest-footed, and most
active. Many of the rocks are loose. The ledge is very narrow, and even
where there is room for the feet there are such projections above as
leave no room for the body. I will halloo to her, and tell her of the
danger.”
“If you halloo, you will increase the danger--you will alarm her,” said
the old man.
“It will be best to stop her now, in season, when she can go back. Stay
for me, sir, I can run along on the heights so as to overlook them, and
can then warn without alarming.”
“Do so, my son, and hasten, for she seems bent on going forward. The
preacher follows but slowly, and she stops for him. Away!”
The youth darted along the hill, pursuing something of a table-line
which belonged to the equal elevation of the range of rock on which he
stood. The rock was formed of successive and shelving ledges, at such
intervals, however, as to make it no easy task--certainly no safe
one--to drop from one to the other. The perch of Ned Hinkley, was a
projection from the lowest of these ledges, running brokenly along the
margin of the basin until lost in the forest slope over which Margaret
Cooper had led her companion.
If it was a task to try the best vigor and agility--to say nothing of
courage--of the ablest mountaineer, to ascend the abrupt ledges from
below, aiming at the highest point of elevation. The attempt was still
more startling to follow the lower ledges, some of which hung, loosened
and tottering, just above the deepest parts of the lake. Yet, with that
intrepidity which marked her character, this was the very task which
Margaret Cooper had proposed to herself. William Hinkley had justly said
that she did not seem to know fear; and when Stevens with the natural
sense of caution which belongs to one to whom such performances are
unusual, suggested to her that such a pathway seemed very dangerous--
“Dangerous!” she exclaimed, standing upon the merest pinnacle of a
loosened fragment which rested on the very margin of the stream.
“Did you never perceive that there was a loveliness in danger which you
scarcely felt to be half so great in any other object or situation. I
love the dangerous. It seems to lift my soul, to make my heart bound
with joy and the wildest delight. I know nothing so delightful as storm
and thunder. I look, and see the tall trees shivering and going down
with a roar, and feel that I could sing--sing aloud--and believe that
there are voices, like mine, then singing through all the tempest. But
there is no danger here. I have clambered up these ledges repeatedly--up
to the very top. Here, you see, we have an even pathway along the edge.
We have nothing to do but to set the foot down firmly.”
But Stevens was not so sure, and his opinion on the beauties of the
dangerous did not chime exactly with hers. Still, he did not lack for
courage, and his pride did not suffer him to yield in a contest with a
female. He gazed on her with increasing wonder. If he saw no loveliness
in danger--he saw no little loveliness just then in her; and she might
be said to personify danger to his eyes. Her tall, symmetrical, and
commanding figure, perched on the trembling pinnacle of rock which
sustained her, was as firm and erect as if she stood on the securest
spot of land.
Nor was her position that of simple security and firmness. The grace of
her attitude, her extended and gently waving arm as she spoke, denoted
a confidence which could only have arisen from a perfect unconsciousness
of danger. Her swan-like neck, with the face slightly turned back to
him; the bright flashing eyes, and the smile of equal pride and dignity
on her exquisitely-chiselled mouth;--all formed a picture for the
artist's study, which almost served to divert the thoughts of Stevens
from the feeling of danger which he expressed.
While he gazed, he heard a voice calling in tones of warning from above;
and, at the sound, he perceived a change in the expression of Margaret
Cooper's face, from confidence and pride, to scorn and contempt. At the
same time she darted forward from rock to rock, with a sort of defying
haste, which made him tremble for her safety, and left him incapable to
follow. The call was repeated; and Stevens looked up, and recognised the
person of the youth whom he had counselled that morning with such bad
success.
If the progress of Margaret Cooper appeared dangerous in his sight, that
of the young man was evidently more so. He was leaping, with the cool
indifference of one who valued his life not a pin's fee, from ledge to
ledge, down the long steppes which separated the several reaches of the
rock formation. The space between was very considerable, the descent
abrupt; the youth had no steadying pole to assist him, but flying
rather than leaping, was now beheld in air, and in the next moment stood
balancing himself with difficulty, but with success, and without seeming
apprehension, on the pinnacle of rock below him. In this way he was
approaching the lower ledge along which Margaret Cooper was hurrying as
rapidly as fearlessly, and calling to her as he came, implored her to
forbear a progress which was so full of danger.
Stevens fancied he had no reason to love the youth, but he could not
help admiring and envying his equal boldness and agility; the
muscular ease with which he flung himself from point to point, and his
sure-footed descent upon the crags and fragments which trembled and
tottered beneath the sudden and unaccustomed burden. Charitably wishing
that, amid all his agility he might yet make a false step, and find an
unexpected and rather cold bath in the lake below, Stevens now turned
his eyes upon Margaret Cooper.
She did not answer the counsels of William Hinkley--certainly did not
heed them: and, but for the increased impatience of her manner might be
supposed not to have heard them. The space between herself and Stevens
had increased meanwhile, and looking back, she waited for his approach.
She stood on a heavy mass which jutted above the lake, and not six feet
from the water. Her right foot was upon the stone, sustaining the
whole weight of her person. Her left was advanced and lifted to another
fragment which lay beyond. As she looked back she met the eyes of
Stevens. Just then he saw the large fragment yield beneath her feet. She
seemed suddenly conscious of it in the same moment, and sprung rapidly
on that to which her left foot was already advanced. The impetus of
this movement, sent the rock over which she had left. This disturbed
the balance of that to which she had risen, and while the breath of the
stranger hung suspended in the utterance of the meditated warning, the
catastrophe had taken place. The stone shrank from beneath her, and,
sinking with it, in another moment, she was hidden from sight in the
still, deep waters of the lake.