At Randolph’s bridge the opening expands as the rocks rise upwards, till the width is about seventy or eighty feet; yet, from the sudden turn of the river, as it enters this passage, the stream was so checked in its progress that the flood actually rose over the very top of the rocks, forty-six feet above the usual height, and inundated the level part that lies over them to the depth of four feet, making a total perpendicular rise at this point of not less than fifty feet.
The effects of the deluge of the 3d and 4th of August, remain on the Dorbach, in a bank one hundred feet high, which rose with slopes and terraces covered with birch and alder wood. The soil being naturally spongy imbibed so much rain, that it became overloaded, and a mass of about an acre in extent, with all its trees on it, gave way at
once, threw itself headlong down, and bounded across the bed of the Dorbach, blocking up the waters, flooded and wide as they were at the time. A farmer, who witnessed this phenomenon, told Sir Thomas Dick Lauder that it fell “wi’ a sort o’ a dumb sound,” while astonished and confounded
he remained gazing at it. The bottom of the valley is here some two hundred yards or more wide, and the flood nearly filled it. The stoppage was not so great, therefore, as altogether to arrest the progress of the stream; but this sudden obstacle created an accumulation of water behind it, which went on increasing for nearly an hour, till, becoming too powerful to be longer resisted, the enormous dam began to yield, and was swept off at once, and hurled onwards like a floating island. While the farmer stood lost in wonder to behold his farm thus sailing off to the ocean by acres at a time, another half acre, or more, was suddenly rent from its native hill, and descended at once, with a whole grove of trees on it, to the river, where it rested on its natural base. The flood immediately assailed this, and carried off the greater part of it piecemeal. At the time when Sir Thomas was writing, part of it remained with the trees growing on it in the upright position, after having travelled through a horizontal distance of sixty or seventy yards, with a perpendicular descent of not less than sixty feet.
At Dunphail, the residence of Mr. Bruce was threatened by the flood, and that gentleman prevailed
on his wife and daughter to quit the house and seek refuge on higher ground. Before quitting the place, their anxiety had been extremely excited for the fate of a favourite old pony, then at pasture in a broad green, and partially-wooded island, of some acres in extent. As the spot had never been flooded in the memory of man, no one thought of removing the pony until the wooden bridges having been washed away rendered it impossible to do so. When the embankment gave way, and the patches of green gradually diminished, Dobbin, now in his 27th year, and in shape something like a 74-gun ship cut down to a frigate, was seen galloping about in great alarm as the wreck of roots and trees floated past him, and as the last spot of grass disappeared he was given up for lost. At this moment he made a desperate effort to cross the stream under the house; the force of the current turned him head over heels, but he rose again with his head up the river; he made boldly up against it, but was again borne down and turned over: every one believed him lost, when rising once more and setting down the waste of water, he crossed both torrents, and landed safely on the opposite bank.
At night Mr. Bruce says there was something inexpressibly fearful and sublime in the roar of the torrent, which by this time filled the valley, the ceaseless plash of the rain, and the frequent and fitful gusts of the north wind that groaned among the woods. The river had now undermined the bank the house stood on, and this bank had already been carried away to within four paces of the foundation of the kitchen tower, and, as mass after mass fell with a thundering noise, some fine trees, which had stood for more than a century on the terrace above it, disappeared in the stream. The operations of the flood were only dimly discovered by throwing the faint light of lanterns over its waters, and its progress was judged of by marking certain intervals of what remained of the terrace. One by one these fell in, and at about eleven o’clock the river was still rising, and only a space of three yards remained about the house, which was now considered as lost. The furniture was ordered to be removed, and by means of carts and lanterns this was done without any loss. About one o’clock in the morning, the partial subsidence of the flood awakened a slight hope, but in an hour it rose again higher than before. The banks
which supported the house were washed away, and the house itself seemed to be doomed, and the people were therefore sent out of it. But Providence ordered otherwise; about four o’clock the clouds appeared higher, the river began again to subside; by degrees a little sloping beach became visible towards the foot of the precipice; the flood ceased to undermine, and the house was saved.
But the ruin and devastation of the place were frightful to behold. The shrubbery, all along the river side, with its little hill and moss-house, had vanished; two stone and three wooden buildings were carried off; the beautiful fringe of wood on both sides of the river, with the ground it grew on, were washed to the ocean, together with all those sweet and pastoral projections of the fields which gave so peaceful and fertile a character to the valley; whilst the once green island, robbed of its groups of trees and furrowed by a dozen channels, was covered with large stones, gravel, and torn-up roots.