Walking softly back to the mill-wheel he crossed again, made his way into the house, and then to the window, where he once more took up his position, and began to watch the dimly-seen crossing, waiting to see the disturber, as he termed him, of his daughter’s peace, fall headlong into the channel.
Hardly had he settled himself, though, to watch, when a change came over him.
“No, hang it,” he muttered, “it is a dirty, mean trick; and Gil Carr is too good a man to treat in such a way. I’ve been hard enough upon him, and there is no need for this. I’ll go and put it back.”
The founder went down stairs once more, and out into the darkness with the full intent of replacing the bridge; but he was too late. Before he could reach the rough framework by which he had crossed, there was a step away to the right, a cry, a tremendous splash, and, as for a few moments he stood paralysed by the rushing stream, he caught a glimpse of a white face amidst the black water, and then it disappeared.
The founder’s repentance seemed to have come too late, and his trap had apparently acted but too well. For the first time, perhaps, he realised that a man’s chance of life in those rushing waters was very small. He had once helped to draw out the body of one who had been drowned in the great pool, and who had gradually been drawn down to get entangled in the mill-wheel, but he had never seen any one fall directly into the race, and he was startled at the velocity with which the figure passed.
“My poor lad!” he groaned. “What have I done? Of all the passionate fools!—”
Here he was interrupted by a couple of figures approaching out of the darkness, one on either side of the stream, and a voice that made him start exclaimed, “Has he passed you?”
Setting a trap is one thing, catching the right bird you set it for quite another affair.
In this case Jeremiah Cobbe had calculated pretty well, but he had not foreseen all the possibilities, and the consequence was that the man for whose benefit the bridge had been drawn aside had not fallen into the stream.
For no sooner had the founder entered the house and closed the door than a tall, gaunt figure rose up from behind the thick hedge which sheltered the garden, and uttered a low peculiar signal, somewhat like the cry of a sea-bird. This he repeated twice without effect, and he was about to risk being heard in replacing the swing-bridge when a sound from another direction made him shrink back to his hiding-place, after giving another signal exactly like the seamew’s cry.