Here delayed by the wreckage, there set free by a blow from some passing timber,—still they kept steadily on down the stream. And now there came to Louis a strange experience. For it seemed to him that before them moved a white Figure, wherein he recognized that which once trod the Sea of Galilee, and through the rushing of the waves and the roaring of the fierce wind there seemed to fall upon his ears the whisper, “Fear not, it is I.” And as all his life he had followed the Lord Christ, so now, he steered after the glimmer of that white form seen or fancied. And by faith or fancy it led them on till daybreak.
When they had returned home, drenched and exhausted, Louis laid his hand upon Mr. Clare’s arm, and smiled into his face with white lips but strangely shining eyes. “Mr. Clare,” he said, “oh, Mr. Clare, I have my wish, that I tried not to wish for. He has been very good to me. I know now that He is God, and that He could not—oh! He could not stay in Heaven while we suffered and died on earth; He must come down to help and save us!”
“He is saving us now, Louis,” said Mr. Clare, “saving us by what seems the extremity of His wrath. ‘O Saviour of the world, Who by Thy cross and precious blood hast redeemed us, save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord’!”
CHAPTER II.
“POLLY, PUT THE KETTLE ON.”
With the breathing of that first prayer and the attainment of Louis’ wish, the breach between the two parties at “Prices” became a self-evident fact; and though across the breach the bands of good-fellowship still held fast, even these no longer bound together the members of one household, but connected two opposing camps, the relations between which were manifestly strained.
Karl Metzerott called himself a reasonable man. He professed to have no personal feeling in the matter, no personal grudge against Mr. Clare. “No interloper,” he said, “could ever be to ‘Prices’ what he, Karl Metzerott, had been; and as for present influences, he was abundantly ready to welcome any that were good. Had he ever opposed this man Clare until he came out in his true colors? cunning, canting priest that he was! As for Louis, what he chose to believe was his own affair; it was a free country, surely, as far as a man’s conscience was concerned; and if what satisfied his father was not good enough for him, it was nobody’s business but that of their two selves.”
It was quite true that Mr. Clare was exerting all his powers, and putting forth his utmost influence; for one of those crucial questions had arisen which try men’s souls, and separate between the good and the evil.
The body of water which was known as Cannomore Lake had been increased immensely beyond its normal proportions by a dam of unusual height, and, as some undertook to prove by the laws of mechanics, of illegal proportions and construction. It was owned by a club of wealthy sportsmen, and used as a fishing-ground; and it was stated that the waste-gates, which the extra proportions and alleged unscientific construction of the dam made more than ever necessary, had been permanently stopped up, to prevent the escape of the fish; that the very building of the dam had been earnestly protested against; that the inhabitants of the valley had lived in constant terror of it; and that some months before the actual catastrophe it had been pronounced by skilled engineers in a dangerous condition. But the lake had also been used as a reservoir to supply the town which had suffered most heavily from its breaking bounds; and some were inclined to cast a part of the blame upon the authorities there; but it was a question whether in this matter they could have taken any measures, which would have been at all sufficient, without the consent of the club; since the dam could only have been thoroughly repaired after draining off the water, and at great cost.
“And of course in the height of the fishing season letting off the water was not to be dreamed of,” was the angry murmur; “for what to a club of millionnaires were the lives of a few thousand factory hands, compared with the enjoyment of their favorite sport?”
There were not wanting, either, allusions to the feeding of the carp in the Roman fish-ponds, which, it was darkly hinted, preceded by not so very many years the fall of the Roman empire.