"It's all the more impressive, then. What's the use of your delicate, weak-backed theories that require a score of centuries to substantiate them?"
"Your theory about the bridges will soon be settled," remarked Leonard, ominously, "and I fear it will prove correct. At this rate the town will have to pay for half a dozen new ones—bridges, I mean."
"Well amended," added Webb.
"Just hear the rain!" said Leonard, ruefully. There was a heavy body of snow still in the mountains and on northern slopes, and much ice on the streams and ponds. "There certainly will be no little trouble if this continues."
"Don't worry, children," said Mr. Clifford, quietly. "I have generally found everything standing after the storms were over."
CHAPTER XIX
WINTER'S EXIT
The old house seemed so full of strange sounds that Amy found it impossible to sleep. Seasoned as were its timbers, they creaked and groaned, and the casements rattled as if giant hands were seeking to open them. The wind at times would sigh and sob so mournfully, like a human voice, that her imagination peopled the darkness with strange creatures in distress, and then she would shudder as a more violent gust raised the prolonged wail into a loud shriek. Thoughts of her dead father—not the resigned, peaceful thoughts which the knowledge of his rest had brought of late—came surging into her mind. Her organization was peculiarly fine and especially sensitive to excited atmospherical conditions, and the tumult of the night raised in her mind an irrepressible, although unreasoning, panic. At last she felt that she would scream if she remained alone any longer. She put on her wrapper, purposing to ask Mrs. Leonard to come and stay with her for a time, feeling assured that if she could only speak to some one, the horrid spell of nervous fear would be broken. As she stepped into the hall she saw a light gleaming from the open door of the sitting-room, and in the hope that some one was still up, she stole noiselessly down the stairway to a point that commanded a view of the apartment. Only Webb was there, and he sat quietly reading by the shaded lamp and flickering fire. The scene and his very attitude suggested calmness and safety. There was nothing to be afraid of, and he was not afraid. With every moment that she watched him the nervous agitation passed from mind and body. His strong, intent profile proved that he was occupied wholly with the thought of his author. The quiet deliberation with which he turned the leaves was more potent than soothing words. "I wouldn't for the world have him know I'm so weak and foolish," she said to herself, as she crept noiselessly back to her room. "He little dreamed who was watching him," she whispered, smilingly, as she dropped asleep.
When she waked next morning the rain had ceased, the wind blew in fitful gusts, and the sky was still covered with wildly hurrying clouds that seemed like the straggling rearguard which the storm had left behind. So far as she could see from her window, everything was still standing, as Mr. Clifford had said. Familiar objects greeted her reassuringly, and never before had the light even of a lowering morning seemed more blessed in contrast with the black, black night. As she recalled the incidents of that night—her nervous panic, and the scene which had brought quiet and peace—she smiled again, and, it must be admitted, blushed slightly. "I wonder if he affects others as he does me," she thought. "Papa used to say, when I was a little thing, that I was just a bundle of nerves, but when Webb is near I am not conscious I ever had a nerve."
Every little brook had become a torrent; Moodna Creek was reported to be in angry mood, and the family hastened through breakfast that they might drive out to see the floods and the possible devastation. Several bridges over the smaller streams had barely escaped, and the Idlewild brook, whose spring and summer music the poet Willis had caused to be heard even in other lands, now gave forth a hoarse roar from the deep glen through which it raved. An iron bridge over the Moodna, on the depot road, had evidently been in danger in the night. The ice had been piled up in the road at each end of the bridge, and a cottage a little above it was surrounded by huge cakes. The inmates had realized their danger, for part of their furniture had been carried to higher ground. Although the volume of water passing was still immense, all danger was now over. As they were looking at the evidences of the violent breaking up of winter, the first phoebe-bird of the season alighted in a tree overhanging the torrent, and in her plaintive notes seemed to say, as interpreted by John Burroughs, "If you please, spring has come." They gave the brown little harbinger such an enthusiastic welcome that she speedily took flight to the further shore.