A SHELTER.
Albert drove up the stream, and in a fit of desperation again essayed to
ford it. The staying in the rain all night with Katy was so terrible to
him that he determined to cross at all hazards. It were better to drown
together than to perish here. But again the prudent stubbornness of the
old horse saved them. He stood in the water as immovable as the ass of
Balaam. Then, for the sheer sake of doing something, Charlton drove down
the stream to a point opposite where the bluff seemed of easy ascent.
Here he again attempted to cross, and was again balked by the horse's
regard for his own safety. Charlton did not appreciate the depth and
swiftness of the stream, nor the consequent certainty of drowning in any
attempt to ford it. Not until he got out of the buggy and tried to cross
afoot did he understand how impossible it was.
When Albert returned to the vehicle he sat still. The current rippled
against the body of the horse and the wheels of the buggy. The incessant
rain roared in the water before him. There was nothing to be done. In
the sheer exhaustion of his resources, in his numb despondency, he
neglected even to drive the horse out of the water. How long he sat
there it would be hard to say. Several times he roused himself to utter
a "Halloo!" But the roar of the rain swallowed up his voice, which was
husky with emotion.
After a while he heard a plashing in the water, which was not that of
the rain. He thought it must be the sound of a canoe-paddle. Could
anybody row against such a torrent? But he distinctly heard the
plashing, and it was below him. Even Katy roused herself to listen, and
strained her eyes against the blackness of the night to discover what it
might be. It did not grow any nearer. It did not retreat. At the end of
ten minutes this irregular but distinct dipping sound, which seemed to
be in some way due to human agency, was neither farther nor nearer,
neither slower nor more rapid than at first. Albert hallooed again and
again at it, but the mysterious cause of this dipping and dashing was
deaf to all cries for help. Or if not deaf, this oarsman seemed as
incapable of giving reply as the "dumb old man" that rowed the "lily
maid of Astolat" to the palace of Arthur.
But it was no oarsman, not even a dumb one. The lightning for which
Albert prayed came at last, and illumined the water and the shores,
dispelling all dreams of canoe or oarsman. Charlton saw in an instant
that there was a fence a few rods away, and that where the fence crossed
the stream, or crossed from bank to bank of what was the stream at its
average stage, long poles had been used, and one of these long and supple
poles was now partly submerged. The swift current bent it in the middle
until it would spring out of the water and drop back higher up. It was
thus kept in a rotary motion, making the sound which he had mistaken for
the paddling of a canoeman. With this discovery departed all thought of
human help from that quarter.
But with the dissipating of the illusion came a new hope. Charlton
turned the head of the horse back and drove him out of the water, or at
least to a part of the meadow where the overflowed water did not reach to
his knees. Here he tied him to a tree, and told Katy she must stay alone
until he should cross the stream and find help, if help there should be,
and return. It might take him half an hour. But poor Katy said that she
could not live half an hour longer in this rain. And, besides, she knew
that Albert would be drowned in crossing. So that it was with much ado
that he managed to get away from her, and, indeed, I think she cried
after he had gone. He called back to her when he got to the brook's bank,
"All right, Katy!" but Katy heard him through the roar of the rain, and
it seemed to her that he was being swallowed up in a Noachian deluge.
Charlton climbed along on the precarious footing afforded by the
submerged pole, holding to the poles above while the water rushed about
his feet. These poles were each of them held by a single large nail at
each end, and the support was doubly doubtful. He might fall off, or the
nails might come out. Even had he not been paralyzed by long exposure to
the cold, he could have no hope of being able to swim in such a torrent.
In the middle of the stream he found a new difficulty. The posts to which
these limber poles were nailed at either end sloped in opposite
directions, so that while he started across on the upper side he found
that when he got to the middle the pole fence began to slant so much up
the stream that he must needs climb to the other side, a most difficult
and dangerous performance on a fence of wabbling popple poles in the
middle of a stream on a very dark night. When at last he got across the
stream, he found himself in the midst of a hazel thicket higher than his
head. He hallooed to Katy, and she was sure this time that it was his
last drowning cry. Working his way out of the hazel-brush, he came to a
halt against a fence and waited for lightning. That there was a house in
the neighborhood he could not doubt, but whether it were inhabited or not
was a question. And where was it?
For full five minutes--an eternal five minutes--the pitiless rain poured
down upon Charlton as he stood there by the fence, his eyes going forward
to find a house, his heart running back to the perishing Katy. At last
the lightning showed him a house, and from the roof of the house he saw a
stovepipe. The best proof that it was not a deserted claim-shanty!
Stumbling round the fence in the darkness, Charlton came upon the house,
a mere cabin, and tried three sides of it before he found the entrance.
When he knocked, the door was opened by a tall man, who said:
"Right smart sprinkle, stranger! Where did you come from? Must 'a' rained
down like a frog."
But Albert had no time for compliments. He told his story very briefly,
and asked permission to bring his sister over.
"Fetch her right along, stranger. No lady never staid in this 'ere shed
afore, but she's mighty welcome."
Albert now hurried back, seized with a fear that he would find Katy dead.
He crossed on the poles again, shouting to Katy as he went. He found her
almost senseless. He quickly loosed old Prince from the buggy, and
tethered him with the lines where he would not suffer for either water or
grass, and then lifted Kate from the buggy, and literally carried her to
the place where they must needs climb along the poles. It was with much
difficulty that he partly carried her, partly persuaded her to climb
along that slender fence. How he ever got the almost helpless girl over
into that hazel-brush thicket he never exactly knew, but as they
approached the house, guided by a candle set in the window, she grew more
and more feeble, until Albert was obliged to carry her in and lay her
down in a swoon of utter exhaustion.
The inhabitant of the cabin ran to a little cupboard, made of a
packing-box, and brought out a whisky-flask, and essayed to put it to her
lips, but as he saw her lying there, white and beautiful in her
helplessness, he started back and said, with a rude reverence, "Stranger,
gin her some of this 'ere--I never could tech sech a creetur!"
And Albert gave her some of the spirits and watched her revive. He warmed
her hands and chafed her feet before the fire which the backwoodsman had
made. As she came back to consciousness, Charlton happened to think that
he had no dry clothes for her. He would have gone immediately back to the
buggy, where there was a portmanteau carefully stowed under the seat, but
that the Inhabitant had gone out and he was left alone with Katy, and he
feared that she would faint again if he should leave her. Presently the
tall, lank, longhaired man came in.
"Mister," he said, "I made kinder sorter free with your things. I thought
as how as the young woman might want to shed some of them air wet
feathers of her'n, and so I jist venter'd to go and git this yer bag
'thout axin' no leave nor license, while you was a-bringin' on her to.
Looks pooty peart, by hokey! Now, mister, we ha'n't got no spar rooms
here. But you and me'll jes' take to the loff thar fer a while, seein'
our room is better nor our comp'ny. You kin change up stars."
They went to the loft by an outside ladder, the Inhabitant speaking very
reverently in a whisper, evidently feeling sure that there was an angel
down-stairs. They went down again after a while, and the Inhabitant piled
on wood so prodigally that the room became too warm; he boiled a pot of
coffee, fried some salt-pork, baked some biscuit, a little yellow and a
little too short, but to the hungry travelers very palatable. Even
Charlton found it easy to forego his Grahamism and eat salt-pork,
especially as he had a glass of milk. Katy, for her part, drank a cup of
coffee but ate little, though the Inhabitant offered her the best he had
with a voice stammering with emotion. He could not speak to her without
blushing to his temples. He tried to apologize for the biscuit and the
coffee, but could hardly ever get through his sentence intelligibly, he
was so full of a sentiment of adoration for the first lady into whose
presence he had come in years. Albert felt a profound respect for the man
on account of his reverence for Katy. And Katy of course loved him as she
did everybody who was kind to her or to her friends, and she essayed once
or twice to make him feel comfortable by speaking to him, but so great
was his agitation when spoken to by the divine creature, that he came
near dropping a plate of biscuit the first time she spoke, and almost
upset the coffee the next time. I have often noticed that the anchorites
of the frontier belong to two classes--those who have left humanity and
civilization from sheer antagonism to men, a selfish, crabbed love of
solitude, and those who have fled from their fellows from a morbid
sensitiveness. The Inhabitant was of the latter sort.