There was a right of public footpath across one corner of the park. Tracking this narrow white ribbon through the greensward, I came at length to a stile which admitted me into the high road. Exactly opposite was a second stile, opening on a second footpath, which I felt sure could lead to nowhere but the river. Nor was I mistaken. In another five minutes I was on the banks of the Adair.
To my child's eye, the scene was one of exquisite beauty. To-day, I should probably call it flat and wanting in variety. The equable full-flowing river was lighted up by a full and unclouded moon. The undergrowth that fringed its banks was silver-foliaged; silver-white rose the mists in the meadows. Silence everywhere, save for the low liquid murmur of the river itself, which seemed burdened with some love secret, centuries old, which it was vainly striving to tell in articulate words.
The burden of the beauty lay upon me and saddened me. I wandered slowly along the bank, watching the play of moonlight on the river. Suddenly I saw a tiny boat that was moored to an overhanging willow, and floated out the length of its chain towards the middle of the stream. I looked around. Not a creature of any kind was visible. Then I thought to myself: "How pleasant it would be to sit out there in the boat for a little while. And surely no one could be angry with me for taking such a liberty—not even the owner of the boat, if he were to find me there."
No sooner said than done. I went down to the edge of the river and drew the boat inshore by the chain that held it. Then I stepped gingerly in, half-frightened at my own temerity, and sat down. The boat glided slowly out again to the length of its chain and then became motionless. But it was motionless only for a moment or two. A splash in the water drew my attention to the chain. It had been insecurely fastened to a branch of the willow; my weight in the boat had caused it to become detached and fall into the water, and with horrified eyes I saw that I had now no means of getting back to the shore. Next moment the strength of the current carried the boat out into mid-stream, and I began to float slowly down the river.
I sat like one paralysed, unable either to stir or speak. The willows seemed to bow their heads in mocking farewell as I glided past them. I heard the faint baying of a dog on some distant farm, and it sounded like a death-note in my frightened ears. Suddenly the spell that had held me was loosened, and I started to my feet. The boat heeled over, and but for a sudden instinctive movement backward I should have gone headlong into the river, and have ended my troubles there and then. The boat righted itself, veered half-round and then went steadily on its way down the stream. I sank on my knees and buried my face in my hands, and began to cry. When I had cried a little while it came into my mind that I would say my prayers. So I said them, with clasped hands and wet eyes; and the words seemed to come from me and affect me in a way that I had never experienced before. As I write these lines I have a vivid recollection of noticing how blurred and large the moon looked through my tears.
My heart was now quieted a little; I was no longer so utterly overmastered by my fears. I was recalled to a more vivid sense of earth and its realities by the low, melancholy striking of some village clock. I gazed eagerly along both banks of the river; but although the moon shone so brightly, neither house nor church nor any sign of human habitation was visible. When the clock had told its last syllable, the silence seemed even more profound than before. I might have been floating on a river that wound through a country never trodden by the foot of man, so entirely alone, so utterly removed from all human aid, did I feel myself to be.
I drew the skirt of my frock over my shoulders, for the night air was beginning to chill me, and contrived to regain the seat I had taken on first entering the boat. Whither would the river carry me, was the question I now put to myself. To the sea, doubtless. Had I not been taught at school that sooner or later all rivers emptied themselves into the ocean? The immensity of the thought appalled me. It seemed to chill the beating of my heart; I grew cold from head to foot. Still the boat held its course steadily, swept onward by the resistless current; still the willows nodded their fantastic farewells. Along the level meadows far and wide the white mist lay like a vast winding-sheet; now and then through the stillness I heard, or seemed to hear, a moan—a mournful wail, as of some spirit just released from earthly bonds, and forced to leave its dear ones behind. The moonlight looked cruel, and the water very, very cold. Someone had told me that death by drowning was swift and painless. Those stars up there were millions of miles away; how long would it take my soul, I wondered, to travel that distance—to reach those glowing orbs—to leave them behind? How glorious such a journey, beyond all power of thought, to track one's way among the worlds that flash through space! In the world I should leave there would be one person only who would mourn for me—Sister Agnes, who would—But what noise was that?
A noise, low and faint at first, just taking the edge of silence with a musical murmur that seemed to die out for an instant now and again, then coming again stronger than before, and so growing by fine degrees louder and more confirmed, and resolving itself at last into a sound which could not be mistaken for that of anything but falling water. The sound was clearly in front of me; I was being swept resistlessly towards it. A curve of the river and a swelling of the banks hid everything from me. The sound was momently growing louder, and had distinctly resolved itself into the roar and rush of some great body of water. I shuddered and grasped the sides of the boat with both hands.
Suddenly the curve was rounded, and there, almost in front of me, was a mass of buildings, and there, too, spanning the river, was what looked to me like a trellis-work bridge, and on the bridge was a human figure. The roar and noise of the cataract were deafening, but louder than all was my piercing cry for help. He who stood on the bridge heard it. I saw him fling up his hands as if in sudden horror, and that was the last thing I did see. I sank down with closed eyes in the bottom of the boat, and my heart went up in a silent cry to Heaven. Next moment I was swept into Scarsdale Weir. The boat seemed to glide from under me; my head struck something hard; the water overwhelmed me, seized on me, dashed me here and there in its merciless arms; a noise as of a thousand cataracts filled my ears for a moment; and then I recollect nothing more.
(To be continued.)