THE GREAT VALLEY STORM.
| "Then hurtles forth the wind with sudden burst, |
| And hurls the whole precipitated clouds |
| Down in a torrent. On the sleeping vale |
| Descends infernal force, and with strong gust |
| Turns from the bottom the discolored streams |
| Through the black night that broods immense around, |
| Lashed into foam, the fierce contending falls |
| Swift o'er a thousand rearing rocks do race." |
"Can she survive?" repeated Lyon Berners, perceiving that the physician hesitated to reply. "If she must die, do not fear to tell me so. I, who love her best, would say, 'Thank God!' Can she survive?"
"Mr. Berners, I do not know. Her situation is very critical. She has had convulsions. She is now prostrated and comatose," gravely answered the doctor.
"Then there is good hope that the Angel of Death may take her home now?"
"There is strong hope, since you choose to call it hope instead of fear."
"Ah! Doctor Hart, you know—you know—"
"That death in some cases might be a blessing—that death in this case certainly would. Yes, I know. And yet it is my bounden duty to do what I can to save life, so I must return to my patient," said the physician, laying his hand upon the latch of the door.
"When may I see my wife?" inquired Lyon Berners.
"Now, if you please; but she will not know you," said the doctor, shaking his head.
"I shall know her, however," muttered Mr. Berners to himself, as he raised his hat and followed the doctor into the cell, leaving Beatrix alone in the hall.
It was near midnight, and Miss Pendleton having been very properly turned out of the sick-room, and having been then forgotten, even by herself, had no place on which to lay her head.
When Mr. Berners, following the doctor, entered the cell, he found it but dimly lighted by one of the wax candles with which his care had supplied his wife.
In one corner sat Miss Tabby, whimpering, with more reason than she had ever before whimpered in her life, over the new-born baby that lay in her lap.
Near by stood old Mrs. Winterose, busy with her patient.
That patient lay, white as a lily, on her bed.
"How is she?" inquired the doctor, approaching.
"Why, just the same—no motion, no sense, hardly any breath," answered the nurse.
"Sybil, my darling! Sybil!" murmured her heart-broken husband, bending low over her still and pallid face.
She rolled her head from side to side, as if half-awakened by some familiar sound, and then lay still again.
"Sybil! my dearest wife! Sybil!" again murmured Lyon Berners, laying his hand on her brow.
She opened her eyes wide, looked around, and then gazed at her husband's face as if it had been only a part of the wall.
"Sybil, my dear, my only love! Sybil!" he repeated, trying to meet and fix her gaze.
But her eyes glanced off and wandered around the room, and finally closed again.
"I told you she would not know you," sighed the doctor.
"So best, so best, perhaps. Heaven grant that she may know nothing until her eyes shall open in that bright and blessed land, where
'The wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest!'"
said Lyon Berners, bowing his head.
But he remained standing by the bedside, and gazing at the pale, still face of his wife, until at length Miss Tabby came up to him, with the babe in her arms, and whimpered forth:
"Oh, Mr. Lyon, won't you look at your little daughter just once? Won't you say something to her? Won't you give her your blessing? Nobody has said a word to her yet; nobody has welcomed her; nobody has blessed her! Oh! my good Lord in heaven! to be born in prison, and not to get one word of welcome from anybody, even from her own father!"
And here Miss Tabby, overcome by her feelings, sobbed aloud; for which weakness I for one don't blame her.
"Give me the child," said Mr. Berners, taking the babe from the yielding arms of the nurse. "Poor little unfortunate!" he continued, as he uncovered and gazed on her face. "May the Lord bless you, for I, wretch that I am, have no power to bless."
At this moment Mrs. Winterose came up, and addressing the doctor, said:
"Sir, I have done all I can do in this extremity. Tabby is fully equal to anything that may happen now. But as for me, sir, I must leave."
"Leave? What are you thinking of, woman?" demanded the doctor, almost angrily.
"Sir, I left my poor old husband at the very point of death! I would not have left him, for any other cause on earth but this. And now I must go back to him, or he may be dead before I get there."
"Good Heaven, my dear woman, but this is dreadful!"
"I know it is, sir. But I couldn't help it. My child here ill and in prison, and I called to help her in her extremity, and my husband on his death-bed. Well, sir, I couldn't help my poor old man much, because he was so low he didn't know one face from another, and I could help my poor imprisoned, suffering child; and so I left my dying husband to the care of my darter Libby, and I comes to my suffering child! But now she's over the worst of it, I must leave her in the care of Tabby, and go back to my dying husband. Please God I may find him alive!" said the poor woman, fervently clasping her hands.
"My good soul, here is indeed a most painful case of a divided duty," said the doctor, in admiration.
"Yes, sir; but the Lord fits the back to the burden," sighed Mrs. Winterose, resignedly.
"Have you two backs?" wickedly inquired the doctor.
"What was it, sir?" asked Mrs. Winterose, doubting her own ears.
"Nothing. But just see what a storm is coming up! You'll be caught in it if you venture out."
"Law, sir, I'm not sugar, nor likewise salt, to get melted in a little water. And I must go, sir, please, if I am ever to see my old man alive again," said the nurse resolutely, putting on her bonnet and shawl.
"But how are you going six miles through night and storm?"
"Mr. Lyon will not begrudge me the use of the carriage and horses and driver as brought me here, to take me back to my husband's death-bed, I reckon," said the old woman confidently.
"No, indeed; nor any help I can give you, dear Mrs. Winterose," said Mr. Berners, feeling himself appealed to.
"Thanky, sir; I knowed it. And this I say: When the breath is outen my poor old man's body I will come back to my child, holding it always more dutiful to attend to the living as can suffer, rather than to the dead as are at rest. And now, if you please, Mr. Lyon, to see me into the carriage, and order Joe to drive me home, I will be obleeged to you," said the old woman.
Lyon Berners gave her his arm, with as much respect as if she had been a duchess, and led her from the room.
When they reached the outer door, which the warden, in consideration of the necessity, ordered to be opened at this unusual hour, they found the rain pouring in torrents from a sky as black as pitch.
"A wild night to take the road, Mrs. Winterose," said Mr. Berners, as he hoisted a large umbrella over her head.
"I don't know as I remember a wilder one, sir, since the flood of ninety, and that was when I was a young 'oman, which wasn't yesterday. And you'll hardly remember that, sir?"
"No," answered Lyon, hurrying her into the carriage and hastily clapping to the door.
The turnkey on duty that night went with the carriage to unbar the outer gate for it to pass. Notwithstanding his large umbrella he came back drenched with rain.
"Good Lord! an't it comin' down? Another Noah's flood! Bird Creek is boiling like a pot. It is all up in a white foam! so white that you can see it through the darkness; and listen! you can hear it from here!" said the turnkey as he entered the hall, shook himself, making a rain shower around him, and proceeded to bar the entrance again.
"You won't want this door opened again to-night, will you, Doctor?" inquired the man, rather impatiently, of the physician, who had stepped to the door.
Dr. Hart hesitated, and seemed to debate with himself, and then answered:
"I must stay with my patient for another hour, and then, if there should be no change in her condition, I shall have to trouble you to let me out, Mr. Martin—since you have got no warrant to keep me here," he added, with a smile.
The man put up the last bar with a bang, and looked as if he wished he had the authority of which the doctor spoke.
Dr. Hart returned to the room of his patient whom he found in the same comatose state, watched by Miss Tabby, who was moaning over the young babe that lay across her lap, and by Lyon Berners, who sat beside the bed holding his wife's cold hand.
"Where is Miss Pendleton? I did not see her as I came up the passage," inquired the doctor, after he had looked at his patient.
"The warden's darter came and took her away to sleep in her room, and high time too, poor young lady, for she was about worn out," said Miss Tabby.
The doctor took a seat near the head of the bed, where he could watch the sick woman.
And all became very silent in the cell, until at length Miss Tabby spoke.
"What's that roaring? It can't be thunder this time o' year."
"It is the creek swollen by the rain. I understand that it is very high, lashed into a foam," answered the doctor.
"Oh," said Miss Tabby, indifferently; and all became again silent in the cell but for the sound of many waters heard more and more distinctly even through the heavy walls.
At length the doctor arose to go. He made a final careful examination of his quiet patient, and then, turning to her distressed husband, said:
"I must ask you to go out with me, Mr. Berners, to bring back some medicine for your wife, which I wish to put up at my office."
Lyon Berners silently arose and took up his hat. And the two gentlemen left the cell together.
The warden had gone to bed, but had left orders with the night-watch to let the visitors out when they wished to go.
Once more the heavy bars fell, and the thick doors were opened.
"Heaven and earth! what a night!" exclaimed the doctor, as he buttoned his surtout tightly across his breast, and prepared to brave the fury of the storm.
Lyon Berners, scarcely conscious of the state of the weather, followed him.
It was now dawn, and the black sky had faded to a dark gray.
The rain was pouring down as if all "the gates of heaven" had been opened for another deluge.
The river and the creek lashed to fury, were roaring and rushing onward, like devouring monsters.
"Merciful Heaven! Talk of the fury of fire, but look here!" exclaimed the doctor, glancing around. But his voice was lost in the sound of many waters.
Their road, after passing the outer gates of the prison, lay away from the banks of the creek, and down the course of the river, towards the village.
But for the darkness of that stormy dawn they might have seen a fearful sight below. The lower portion of the town was already overflowed, and the waters were still rising. Many of the people were gathered upon the house-tops, and others were out in boats, engaged in rescuing their neighbors from the flooded dwellings.
But for the horrible roaring of the torrents, they might have heard the shouts and cries of the terrified inhabitants shocked and half-frenzied by the suddenness of this overwhelming calamity.
But they heard and saw but little of this as they plunged on through the darkness, in the deluge of rain and thunder of waters. Unawares they were drawing near their fate. They came upon it gradually.
"Good Heaven! what is the matter down there?" suddenly cried the doctor, as he dimly discerned the forms of men, women, and children gathered upon the house-tops, which did not look like house-tops, but like flat-boats floating upon the dark waters.
"I say, Berners, what the deuce is the matter down there? Your eyes are younger than mine—look," anxiously insisted the doctor, peering down into the gloomy and horrible chaos.
"It is a flood. The river is over the town," replied Mr. Berners, carelessly; for he, in his grief, would not have minded if the whole of the Black Valley had been turned into a black sea.
"The river over the town! Good Heaven! And you say that as indifferently as if hundreds of human lives and millions of money were not imperilled," cried the doctor, breaking away from his companion, and running down towards the village.
A terrible, a heart-crushing sight met his eyes!
The doctor's family occupied a beautiful low-roofed villa on the opposite bank of Violet Run, a little stream of water making up from the Black River. The doctor's first thought was of his own home, of course, and he ran swiftly on, through darkness and storm, until he was suddenly brought up on the banks of the run. Here he stood aghast. The pretty rustic bridge that had spanned the run, and led to his own terraced grounds, was swept away; and the run, now swollen to the size of a raging river, roared between himself and his home.
His home!—where was it?
He strained his aching eyes through the murky gloom to look for it, and oh! horror of horrors! his terraced garden and his low-roofed villa had disappeared, and in their place what seemed a raft, with human beings on, floated about at the mercy of the flood.
With a pang of despair, he recognized it as his own house-top, with probably his wife and children clinging to it; and at the same instant the raft, or roof, was violently whirled around, and swept under by the force of the current.
With a cry of desperation, the wretched husband and father flung up his arms to leap into the boiling flood, when he was caught from behind and held fast.
"What would you do? Rush to certain destruction?" said the voice of Lyon Berners, who had just reached the spot.
"My wife! my children!" shrieked the man, dashing his hands to his head.
"Come back, or you will be swept away," said Mr. Berners, forcibly drawing him from the spot just an instant before the water rolled over it.
And still the rain poured down like another deluge, and still the waters roared and the waters rose, and dark night hung over the dawn.