THE RISE IN THE RIVER.
The rain had been falling at intervals for weeks, and the sluggish
river, which usually crawled at the foot of the town in quiet
submission, had become a dangerous torrent. Long since out of its banks,
its waters poured through the bottoms with an angry roar, and at night
those who gathered on the brink in the town to mark its steady rising
could hear cries of distress from the heavy timber, the firing of guns,
and other alarms.
For two days parties had been out with boats of every description,
rescuing those who believed that the waters would soon go down, and
remained until escape was impossible, imprisoned in the upper rooms of
their houses; and each returning party brought the most distressing news
yet heard of the havoc wrought by the flood. Reaching from hill to hill,
the angry waters ploughed up fair fields like heavy shot fired in
battle, and crept into pretty homes to destroy in a night the work of
years, wresting treasures from their fastenings with remorseless fury,
and hurrying away with them like living thieves.
The citizens of Davy's Bend feared that the sun had been drowned by the
flood in the heavens, as the people were being drowned by the flood in
the bottoms, for its kindly face had not appeared in two weeks. The
roads and lanes in the country, highways no longer, were abandoned to
the rain and the mist, for no travellers ventured upon them, and if the
town had been dull before, it was now doubly so, giving the people
abundance of time in which to recount their miseries. Men who ventured
out in wagons told wonderful tales, on their return, of the reign of the
waters, for insignificant streams which had long been regarded with
familiar contempt had become dangerous rivers, roaring and crashing
through fruitful fields in mad haste to join the floods. Great lakes
occupied the low places for so many days that the people feared the land
itself had floated away, leaving caverns in the place of their fields,
and there was distress in the country as well as in the town. Rude boats
to ply upon the newly arrived waters were hastily constructed by men who
did not know how to use them, never having lived near a navigable
stream, but there seemed a chance for them to learn, for the waters
increased steadily every hour.
As they lay in their beds at night, if they wakened and found that the
rain had ceased, the people of the town hoped that the end had come at
last, and that the waters would soon subside, but before they had framed
their congratulations, the gentle patter of the rain was heard on their
roofs once more, which continued through the long night, ceasing only
occasionally, that the cries of distress and the alarms from the bottom
might be heard, whereupon the rain commenced again with joyful vigor,
sure that its fury was not without result.
The rocky hills above and below the town were oozy and wet; and those
who roamed about heard great splashes in the water, and knew that
portions of the bluff were tumbling into the river, as if tired of being
steady and reliable while everything else was failing, and anxious to
join the tide and aid in the general destruction, as well as to get away
from a place which seemed so unfortunate.
The mild river, patient and uncomplaining so long, was master now, and
it roared like a monster proud of its conquest, and declaring its
intention to be wicked and fierce forever. The observers could not
understand, so great was the awful flood, how the waters could ever
subside, for surely all the lower country must have been flooded days
before, and even those who lived in the hills were filled with grave
apprehensions.
Every morning the simple registers, which the people put up along the
creeks and sloughs, showed an alarming rise, and they feared that if the
rain continued the earth itself would become liquid at last, and resolve
itself into a vast sea without shores.
No one knew how the news came, but there seemed to be whispers in the
air that in the upper country the flood was even worse than at Davy's
Bend, which added to the general apprehension, and many believed that
the rainbow was about to prove faithless at last. Houses of a pattern
barely familiar to the people occasionally floated past the town in the
current, and in one of them rode a man who refused to leave his property
when the relief boats put off to him; for he said that he came from
hundreds of miles above, and that since the world seemed to be turning
into water, he preferred his strange craft to the crumbling hills. As he
floated away, stark mad from excitement, fear, and hunger, he called
back to the men to follow if they valued their lives; for a wave twenty
feet high was coming down the river, carrying the towns along the bluffs
with it.
Bridges which had been built across gullies in the highlands were seen
hurrying by every hour, and it seemed that the hill on which Davy's Bend
was built would shortly tremble, and start slowly down the river, at
last gratifying the ambition of the people to get away.
Among those distressed by the unfortunate condition of those living in
the bottoms were Allan Dorris and his wife, safe in their home above the
town. The people seemed so fearful that the rain would never cease that
they neglected to get sick, and Dr. Dorris would have greatly enjoyed
the uninterrupted days he was permitted to spend with his pretty wife
but for the distress around him.
The dripping from the eaves of The Locks at night--he thought of it
again--reminded him of the dripping from the coffin of a body packed in
ice, which he was commissioned to watch, and long before day he left his
bed and walked the floor. His wife soon joined him, and they looked out
of the window at the blank darkness.
"How it reminds me of the first night I came here," he said. "But what a
different man I am! Then I cursed my existence, and was so disturbed in
mind that night was a season of terror. I dreaded its approach as
heartily then as I now hail it as a season of repose, and every day I
have new reason to rejoice that I am alive. What a fortunate fellow I
am! I can sleep nine hours out of every night, and arise every morning
entirely refreshed, not a day older. I am content now to lie down at
night, and let the world wag, or quarrel, or do whatever it likes, for
the only part of it I care for is beside me. Sometimes I waken, and
forget you for a moment, when I wonder how I ever induced such sound
sleep to come to my eyes; but when I remember it all, I feel like
cheering, and go off into dreamland again with the comfort of a healthy
child. It is a wonderful change, and you are responsible for it all; you
have made one man entirely happy, if you have accomplished nothing
else."
As they stood by the window, he had his arms around her, and when she
looked up at him he kissed her tenderly on the forehead.
"Our marriage has brought no more happiness to you than it has to me,"
she answered. "Since you became my husband, I have known only content
and gladness, except when I become childish and fear you are surrounded
by some grave danger. If I could charge you with a wish I could think of
nothing to ask."
"Who would harm me? Who would dare?" he asked.
His wife thought to herself, as she looked at him, that it would be a
dangerous undertaking to attempt to do him an injury. There were few men
his equal in physical strength, and he could hold her out at arm's
length.
"Danger is a game that two can play at," he said, and there was a frown
on his face so fierce as to indicate that some one who was his enemy had
come into his mind. "I have seen the day when I would have allowed
almost any one the privilege of taking my life, if it would have
afforded them pleasure, but let them keep out of my way now! The tiger
fighting for her whelps would not be fiercer than I, if attacked. I have
more to live for than any other man in the world, and I would fight, not
only with desperation, but with skill and wickedness. If any one wants
my life, let him see that he does not lose his own in attempting to take
it."
Allan Dorris had been oppressed with a vague fear ever since his
marriage that his long period of rest meant a calamity at last, though
he had always tried to argue the notion out of his wife's mind. He had
often felt that he was watched, though he had seen nothing, heard
nothing, to warrant this belief. He could not explain it to himself; but
frequently while walking about the town he turned his head in quick
alarm, and looked about as if expecting an attack. Once he felt so ill
at ease at night, so thoroughly convinced that something was wrong, that
he left his wife quietly sleeping, and crawled under the trees in The
Locks' yard for an hour, with a loaded pistol in his hand. But he had
seen nothing, heard nothing, and his own actions were so much like the
presence he half expected to find, that he was ashamed of them, and
laughed at his fears.
But the dark night and the cheerless rain brought the old dread into his
mind, and he said to his wife,--
"We are all surrounded by danger, though I am as exempt from it as other
men, but if I should meet with an accident some time--I take many long
rides at night, and I have often been in places when a single misstep of
my horse would have resulted in death--I want you to know that your
husband was an honorable man. I have my faults, and I have regrets; but
as the world goes I am an honest man. Your love for me, which is as pure
and good as it can be, has had as much warrant as other wives have for
their love. It was never intended that a perfect man or woman should
exist on this earth, as a reproach to all the other inhabitants, and I
have my faults; but I have as clear a conscience as it was intended that
the average man should have."
"I am sure of that," his wife answered. "You always impress me as being
a fair man, and this was one reason why I forget myself in loving you. I
did not believe you would be unjust to anyone; surely not to one you
loved."
"I believe I am entitled to the compliment you pay me," he replied. "I
know myself so well that a compliment which I do not deserve does not
please me; but I deserve the good opinion you have just expressed. I
have known people whose inclinations were usually right; but mine were
usually wrong--either that, or I have been so situated that, by reason
of hasty conclusions, duty has always been a task; but notwithstanding
this I have always tried to be honest and fair in everything. It
sometimes happens that a man is so situated that if he would be just to
himself he must be unjust to others. I may have been in that situation,
and there may be those who believe that I have wronged them; but I am
sure that an honest judge would acquit me of blame. I have often wanted
to tell you my brief and unimportant history; but you have preferred not
to hear it. While I admire you for this exhibition of trust in me, I
have often wondered that your woman's curiosity did not covet the
secret."
"It is not a secret since you offer to tell it to me," she replied. "But
I prefer not to know it now. You once said to me that every life has its
sorrow; mine is the belief that I know what your history is; but I
prefer to hope that I am wrong rather than know my conjecture is right."
He looked at her with incredulity, and was about to inquire what she
knew, when she continued:
"You never speak to me that I do not get a scrap of your past history; I
read you as easily as I read a book. But I knew it when I became your
wife, and I think less of it now than ever; you are so kind to me that I
think I shall forget it altogether in time. It is scarcely a sorrow;
rather a regret, as I regret during my present happy life that I am
growing old. Sometimes I think I love you all the more because of your
misfortune, though I never think of it when I am with you; it is only
when I am alone that it occupies my mind."
"You are sure that you have not made it worse than it is?"
"Quite sure."
"Who was in the right?"
"You were."
"That much is true, anyway," he answered, looking out at the torrent in
the river, which the approaching daylight now made visible. "I formerly
had a habit of talking in my sleep; you may have learned something in
that way."
"A great deal," she replied. "I learned your name."
For the first time since she had known him he seemed confused, and there
was a flush of mortification in his face. He picked up a scrap of paper
and pencil which were lying on a table near them, and handing them to
her, said,--
"Write it."
Without the slightest hesitation, she wrote quickly on the paper, and
handed it back to him. He looked at it with a queer smile, tore up the
scrap, and said,--
"That would have come out in the story you refused to hear. I have never
deceived you in anything."
"Except in this," she answered, putting her arms around him. "You are a
much better man than I believed you were when we were first acquainted;
you have deceived me in that. My married life could not be happier than
it is."
"I do not take much credit to myself that we are content as husband and
wife," he replied. "I think the fact that we are mated has a great deal
to do with it. There are a great many worthy people--for the world is
full of good women, if not of good men--who live in the greatest
wretchedness; who are as unhappy in their married relations as we are
happy. I have known excellent men married to excellent wives, who are
wretched, as I have known two excellent men to fail as partners in
business. You and I were fortunate in our alliance. It often occurs to
me that Mrs. Armsby should have had a better husband, poor woman. How
many brave, capable men there are in the world who would rejoice in the
possession of such a wife; worthy, honest men who made a mistake only in
marrying the wrong woman, and who will die believing there is nothing in
the world worth living for, as I believed before I met you. Everyone who
is out in the world a great deal knows such men, and pities them, as I
do; for when I contrast my past with my present, I regret that others,
more deserving than I, cannot enjoy the contentment which love brings.
You and I are not phenomenal people in any respect, but we are man and
wife in the fullest sense of the term; and others might enjoy the peace
we enjoy were they equally fortunate in their love affairs. It is a
grand old world for you and I, and those like us, but it is a hell for
those who have been coaxed into unsuitable marriages by the devil."
"There is as much bitterness in your voice now as there was when you
said to me in the church that you were going away never to come back,"
his wife said, looking at him with keen apprehension.
"I am a different man now to what I was then," he replied, with his old
good-nature. "Have you never remarked it?"
"Often; every time I hear you speak."
"I find that there are splendid people even in Davy's Bend, and I
imagine that when the mind is not tortured they may be found anywhere.
In my visits to the homes of Davy's Bend, I hear it said in every
quarter that surely the neighbors are the best people in the world, and
their kindness in sickness and death cause me to believe that as a rule
the people are very good, unless you chain two antagonistic spirits
together, and demand that they be content. I know so much of the
weakness of my race--because it happens to be my business--that I wonder
they are as industrious and honorable as I find them. This never
occurred to me before, and I think it is evidence that I am a changed
man; that I am more charitable than I ever was before, and better."
They both looked out the window in silence again. A misty morning,
threatening rain, and the river before them like a sea.
"I must do something to help those who are imprisoned in their homes by
the flood," Allan Dorris said, as if a sight of the river had suggested
it to him. "I will go down where boats are to be had presently, and row
over into the timber. Do you see that line of trees?"
Below the town, in the river bend, a long line of trees made out into
the channel, which were on dry land in ordinary times, but the point was
covered now, for the flood occupied the bottom from bluff to bluff. He
pointed this out, and when his wife saw the place he referred to, she
nodded her head.
"My boat will be carried down the stream by the strong current, and I
will probably enter the timber there. I will wave my good-by to you from
that point."
He went out soon after to prepare for the trip, and during his absence
his wife hurriedly prepared his breakfast; and when he came back he wore
coat and boots of rubber.
"What a wonderful housekeeper you are," he said, as he sat down to the
table. "No difference what I crave, you supply it before I have time to
worry because of the lack of it. But it is so in everything; I never
want to do a thing but that I find you are of the same mind. It is very
easy to spoil a boy, but I think the girls are naturally so good that
they turn out well without much attention. You had no mother to teach
you, but you took charge of my house with as much good grace and ease as
though you had been driven to it all your life. I think a great deal
more of your sex because of my acquaintance with you. If my wife is not
the most wonderful woman in the world, I shall never know it."
"I am almost ashamed to say it after your kind remark," his wife
replied, "but I am afraid I do not want you to go over into the bottoms.
The thought of it fills me with dread, though I know you ought to go."
"And why not?" he said cheerfully. "I may be able to rescue some
unfortunate over there, and there is nothing dangerous in the journey. I
shall return before the night comes on,--no fear of that; but before I
go I want to tell you again how much my marriage with you has done for
me. I want you to keep it in your mind while I am away, that you may
understand why I am glad to return. Until I came here and met you, I was
as discontented as a man could possibly be, and I am very grateful to
you. A life of toil and misery was my lot until you came to my rescue,
and I thank you for your kindness to me. It occurred to me while I was
out of the room just now, that the shadow under the trees is very much
like the shadow I intended to penetrate when you came to me that dark
night and blessed me. Once you came into the room where I was lying
down, after returning from the country, though I was not asleep as you
supposed. The gentle manner in which you touched my forehead with your
lips; that was love--I have thought about it a thousand times since, and
been thankful. The human body I despise, because of my familiarity with
it; but such a love as yours is divine. I only regret that it is not
more general. Love is the only thing in life worth having; if a man who
lacks it is not discontented, he is like an idiot who is always
laughing, not realizing his condition. Some people I have known
suggested depravity by their general appearance; you think of your own
faults from looking at them, and feel ashamed; but it makes me ambitious
to look at you, and every day since I have known you I have been a
better man than I was the day before."
He had finished his repast by this time, and they walked out to the
front door together, arm in arm, like lovers.
"I have heard it said," he continued, as he tied up his rubber boots and
made final preparations for starting, "that if a wife is too good to her
husband, he will finally come to dislike her. _You_ are too good to me,
I suppose, but it never occurs to me to dislike you for it; on the
contrary, it causes me to resolve to be worthy of your thoughtfulness.
It will do me good to go into the shadow for a day; I will appreciate
the sunshine all the more when I return. But if I should not return--if
an accident should happen to me, which is always possible anywhere--my
last thought would be thankfulness for the happiness of the past three
months."
"But you do not anticipate danger?" she said, grasping his arm, as if to
lead him back into the house.
"There is no danger," he replied. "Even if my boat should fail me, I
could swim back to you from the farthest point, for I love you so much.
You have never seen my reserve strength in action; if a possibility of
being separated from you should present itself, I imagine I should
greatly surprise my enemies. Never fear; I shall come back in good time.
I believe that should I get killed, my body would float against the
current and hug the bank at the point nearest The Locks."
He kissed her quickly and hurried away, and his form was soon lost in
the bend of the street.
How dark it was under the trees! The increasing dull daylight brightened
everything save the darkness under the trees; nothing could relieve
that. What if he should go into it never to return, as he had intended
the night they were married! No, no, no; she wrung her hands at that
thought, and ran towards the door, as if intending to pursue him and
bring him back before he could enter it. But Allan was strong and
trusty, and he would come back to laugh at her childish fears as she
took his dripping garments at the close of the day, and listened to an
account of his adventures,--no fear of that.
A half hour later she saw a boat with a single rower put out from the
town, and make slow headway against the strong current to the other
shore. Was he going alone? It was not dangerous; she persuaded herself
of that, but she thought it must be very lonesome rowing about in such a
flood; and he should not go out again, for he would do anything she
wished, and she would ask it as a favor.
Why had she neglected to think of this, and ask him to go with others?
But it was too late now, for the rower soon reached the line of trees he
had pointed out to her from the window, waved his white handkerchief,
which looked like a signal of danger, and disappeared into the shadow.