“I don’t know, but the magazines were sent from somewhere down east to that poor man who was ill at the barracks so long, and as I have done the washing for the barracks all winter, ever since my husband was sent up to Brocken Ridge, they often used to let me see books and papers; for I’m downright fond of a bit of reading, and I liked your stories so much because they were so true to life. Why, dear me! you might have been talking about people and things that I have known, I mean writing about them; it was all so natural,” said Mrs. Walford.
Bertha thrilled from head to foot. To her this was the sweetest commendation that she had ever had for her work, and it more than compensated for heaps of hard things which she had been called upon to endure. She suddenly realized that it would not have been possible for her to have written as she had done, but for the disasters which had overtaken the Ellis household.
There were tears of happiness in her eyes and such a radiant joy in her heart, that when once again she sent the sharp point of the hairpin right into her finger she did not even wince, and the next jab she gave the lock was successful in fetching it open.
“Hurrah!” she cried, as with a smart push she sent the two doors swinging outwards; then, after one startled glance into the blackness below, she dropped back upon Mrs. Walford, gasping and speechless from sheer terror.
“What is it, Miss Doyne? Good gracious! what is the matter?” asked the good woman, in great amazement, seizing Bertha and holding her fast, under the impression that she had had a bad scare.
“We are on a bridge or something. It almost seems as if we were suspended in mid air, and down below, oh, such a horrible, horrible way, I could see the stars reflected in the water!” said Bertha, with a shudder of horror.
“Is that all?” said Mrs. Walford, greatly relieved. “We have been left on a bridge, of course, a skeleton bridge like all the rest of this precious line; but if it would bear the whole train to pass over it safely, it will certainly bear the weight of this one car, so that you have nothing to be afraid of. But, my word, how bitterly cold it is!”
“I will shut the doors again. We have had enough fresh air to last us for a little while, and I do not want to look down there oftener than I can help,” said Bertha faintly; then she gathered up her courage to reach outward for the purpose of drawing the doors towards her, although she was trembling in every limb from the shock of seeing that gleaming water so far below.
“Sit still; you are shaking like a leaf. If you get leaning out in this condition, the next thing will be that you will take a header into the water, and a pretty business that would be. I will shut the doors myself, for my head is steady enough,” replied Mrs. Walford sharply; for she guessed that Bertha’s trembling was largely hysterical, the result of overwrought nerves and want of food.
“The wind will shut them for you if you will wait a minute. Oh, how it roars!” exclaimed Bertha, as a trumpet blast of wind rushed up the river valley and shook the car so much, that it moved forward on the rails, then slid back again, as if the gradient were against it.