The bank was high on the eastern side, and the descent was by two immense timbers, or masts, chained together and chained to the shore at the upper end, and to the boom at the lower. The inclination was steep, and those who walked through the air on that slippery bridge stepped warily even by day, timing their steps to the heavy vibrations of the timber. But Edith ran fleetly down, and sprang on to the swaying boom ankle-deep in water. Lumber-mills above and below sent out their long lines of red light through the misty darkness, and the noise of their saws was like the grinding of teeth. The logs knocked against each other with a dull thump as the river flowed, and here and there little
spaces of water glistened. To slip into one of those black holes was death. You miss the boom, and step on a log instead, and, unless you are a practised log-walker—possibly, too, if you are—the log rolls, you go under, and there is an end of you. You cannot scream when you are under water; you cannot rise to the surface, for the logs keep you down, or close together and crush you, and no one can see you.
The boom did not reach straight but zigzagged across the river, the lengths chained together, but not closely, and hidden under water. In those spaces, the logs, trying to get through, pushed their bobbing ends up, and tempted the foot. More than once Edith’s foot was in that trap, but she did not sink till just as she reached the western bank. Then, as she went down, she caught an overhanging sapling, and drew herself to land, wet to the waist.
Irish Lane did not reach so far up, by about a quarter of a mile, and there was no road, the way being pasture and ledge. As Edith reached the upper end of the lane, some one else came into it from the lower end, next the bridge, and she heard a woman’s voice lamenting. She did not stop for lamentation, but ran from house to house, bidding them come out and save Father Rasle.
They gathered immediately, asking questions all in confusion, knowing not which way to go, but ready to follow her lead. Had they no rifles nor pistols? No; why should they have them? An Irishman’s weapon was his fist and a cudgel, and whatever he could catch by the way.
An Irishman, indeed, usually goes into battle first, and arms himself afterward.
But the enthusiasm which Edith’s words had kindled the other messenger soon quenched. It was too late
to save him, she said. He had been carried away, they knew not whither. Of course he must be dead long before that time. And he had bid them farewell, and commanded them to use no violence—to do nothing but pray.
Edith heard no more. The hand that, in her earnestness, she had laid on some one’s arm, slipped off, and she dropped to the ground without a word.
It was more than half-past eleven o’clock, and raining quite hard, and the wind had begun to rise. Broken and dispirited, the Catholics went into their houses again, but not to sleep. In one of these houses Edith opened her eyes, and saw about twenty persons gathered, some bending over her, others praying, others walking about and wringing their hands. She got up. “I wish that you would all kneel down, and say the litany of our Lord Jesus,” she said. “I am going to find Father Rasle.”