The keystone of the arch had been laid; time had been given for cement to harden; the wooden framework of the arch was being removed when this was said; only the parapets were wanting, and on those the men were beginning.
Another day the last scrap of timber was gone. Rhys had come down sullenly to the water's edge, weighted by his responsibility, and too doubtful of his brother's skill to give even his perseverance credit. There he found Jonet and Elaine, each with an infant in her arms. A few idlers stood staring and gaping under the trees on the steep banks.
All at once, with no more premonitory shock than a slight tremulous motion under foot that scared the working masons away, the keystone of the arch shot up into the air like a ball; the centre of the arch seemed to rise bodily and press upwards like an inverted V, as if impelled by superhuman force from the sides; there was a report as of a tremendous gunpowder explosion, a blinding shower of dust and flying stones whirling in mid air, a wide gap where a noble structure had been five minutes before.
Draw a curtain over the scene of the collapse. Close the ears to the taunts and mockery, the scorn and derisive epithets, which assail the unfortunate architect wheresoever he goes. Everywhere, save under his own roof, where wife and mother and Davy combined to shield him. But only his wife can enter into his feelings, and alleviate his bitter humiliation. Where he is weak, she is strong, and her very touch is healing.
ONLY HIS WIFE CAN ENTER INTO HIS FEELINGS, AND ALLEVIATE
HIS BITTER HUMILIATION.—See page 327.
Let us follow him into his little private room, and find him on his knees acknowledging in all humility his self-sufficient dependence on himself, his proud and confident trust in his own skill, his forgetfulness of the Lord, omnipotent alike to create and to destroy, from whom he derived whatever mental superiority he possessed, who had led him step by step to success, who had spoken to him by the warning voice of George Whitfield, and at last had broken his stubborn heart, and, with the thunders of calamity, brought him to acknowledge that, 'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.'
Out of that room he walked that day another manner of man.
He was the first to confess that the haunches or side foundations of his bridge had not sufficient strength to bear the strain of the lofty and expansive arch he had imposed upon them. But he added, 'Please God, I will yet, with His help, fulfil my contract, and build a bridge that shall stand, even if it leave me penniless.'