When the new lake of Kensico was linked to the Williamsbridge
reservoir, Keith and Ward visited the farm.
They spoke of tremendous future projects; for the problem of fetching
New York water was one that promised no respite.
They went back to the city, leaving RoBards there to install a new
“superintendent,” the fifth since Albeson had trudged into his grave
after his fat old wife.
Then the autumnal gales began to squander the golden leaves of
Westchester,—the spendthrift heirs that strip all estates and bring
back poverty in its everlasting rhythm.
One night a wind came down in a tidal wave of air, a wind made up of an
army of winds.
RoBards stood out on his porch to watch the battle of his trees, each
engaged with some fierce unseen wrestler that tore off every rag of
leaf and twisted every limb, but could not win a fall. He laughed with
pride to see his tulip trees defending his graves. They neither yielded
nor fled; and they did not die.
The air resounded like a pounded drum with the blasts of wind. The yard
was a cauldron of boiling leaves and a smoke of dust. Mrs. Laight, the
new farmer’s wife, begged the old gentleman to come inside the house,
but he motioned her away, and she watched him through a window; saw him
chuckle and wave his hands to his brave trees.
He trusted even to the old giant whose roots he had sawed off when they
pushed into the cellar walls. But he had trusted too long.
A vast breaker of air rode over the Tarn of Mystery and splashed its
pool with a dozen toppled veterans, oaks, sycamores, and cedars; then
the whole weight of its rush rolled down the hill upon the house
and, plucking off shingles like leaves, wrenching shutters loose and
scattering a chimney into flying bricks, fell upon the ancient tulip
tree on its outer side and brought it down like a fallen lighthouse.
It smashed the roof it had shaded so many years and sliced off the
graceful old cornices.
Mrs. Laight screamed with terror, then with horror; for she saw RoBards
go to his knees under a deluge of splintered timbers. Then the bole of
the tulip tree rolled down upon him as the temple column on Samson; and
he was lost to the sight of her affrighted eyes.