CHAPTER XXIX
A SAD DISCOVERY
The horror-stricken Terry thought no more about his wife, whom he wasin the act of lifting through the trap-door, but let go her hand,allowing her to drop with a crash that shook the whole building.
"Where is the child?" he asked, facing the elder daughter.
"Yonder; I was trying to hold her when she slipped away and rolleddown the slope of the roof--"
But the father waited to hear no more. Just then the cry of his babyreached his ear, and he caught a glimpse of the white clothing whichhelped to buoy her up. Like an athlete, running along a spring-boardto gather momentum for his tremendous leap, he took a couple of stepsdown the incline of the roof to the edge, from which he made atremendous bound far out in the muddy torrent.
It was the energy of desperation and the delirium of paternalaffection itself which carried him for a long way over the water, sothat when he struck, one extended arm seized the shoulder of hischild, while the other sustained both from sinking.
Poor Katie, who had been gasping for breath, now began crying, and thesound was welcome to the parent, for it proved that she was alive. Hadshe been quiet he would have believed she was drowned.
The trees which grew so thickly in the little valley served anothergood purpose in addition to that already named. The most powerfulswimmer that ever lived could not make headway against such a torrent,nor indeed hold his own for a moment.
Terry would have been quickly swept beyond sight and sound of the restof his family had he not grasped a strong, protruding limb by which hechecked his progress.
"Are ye there, Terry?"
It was his wife who called. She had heard the frenzied cry of theelder girl at the moment she went downward herself with such aresounding crash. She was as frantic as her husband, and did thatwhich would have been impossible at any other time. Grasping the sidesof the trap-door, she drew herself upward and through with as muchdeftness as her husband a few minutes before. She asked the agonizedquestion at the moment her head and shoulders appeared above the roof.
"Yis, I'm here, Delia," he called back, "and Katie is wid me."
"Hiven be praised!" was the fervent response of the wife; "I don'tcare now if the owld shanty is knocked into smithereens."
The speech was worthy of an Irishwoman, who never thought of her owninevitable fate in case the catastrophe named should overtake herdwelling while she was on the roof. She could dimly discern thefigures of her husband and child, as the former clung to the friendlylimb.
"If yer faat are risting so gintaaly on the ground," said the wife,who supposed for the moment he was standing on the earth and graspingthe branch to steady himself, "why doesn't ye walk forward and jineus?"
"If my faat are risting on the ground!" repeated Terry: "and if I weredoing the same, I would be as tall as a maating-house wid the staaplethrown in."
"Thin would ye loike to have us join _ye_?" persisted the wife.
"Arrah, Delia, now are ye gone clean crazy, that ye talks in thatstyle? Stay where ye be, and I would be thankful if I could get backto ye, which the same I can't do."
The wife had been so flustered that her questions were a little mixed,but by the time she was fairly seated on the roof, with one armencircling Maggie, who clung, frightened and crying, to her, she beganto realize her situation.
"Terry," she called again, "are ye not comfortable?"
"Wal, yis," replied the fellow, whose waggery must show itself, nowthat he believed the entire family were safe from the flood, "I faalsas comfortable, thank ye, as if I was standing on me head on the topof a barber's pole. How is it wid yerself, me jewel?"
"I'm thankful for the blissing of our lives; but why don't ye climbinto the traa and take a seat?"
"I will do so in a few minutes."
There was good ground for this promise. Although Terry had beensustaining himself only a brief while, he felt the water rising sorapidly that the crown of his head, which was several inches below thesupporting limb, quickly touched it, and as he shifted his positionslightly it ascended still farther. While sustaining his child hecould not lift both over the branch, but, with the help of thecurrent, would soon be able to do so.
Requesting his wife to hold her peace for the moment, he seized theopportunity the instant it presented itself, and with comparativelylittle outlay of strength, placed himself astride the branch. This wasall well enough, provided the flood did not keep on ascending, but itwas doing that very thing, and his perch must speedily becomeuntenable.
His refuge, however, was a sturdy oak, whose top was fully twenty feetabove him, and, like its kind, was abundantly supplied with strongbranches, so near each other that it was not difficult for the fatherto climb to a safe point, where he was confident the furious waterscould never reach him.
Having seated himself in a better position than before, he surveyedhis surroundings with some degree of composure.
"Delia," he called, "I obsarve ye are there yit."
"I'm thankful that yer words are the thruth, and if ye kaap onclimbing ye'll be in the clouds by morning."
Now, while the rising torrent had proven of great assistance in oneway to Terry and his infant child, it threatened a still graver perilto the mother and Maggie, who remained on the roof.
The house, being of wood, was liable to be lifted from its foundationsand carried in sections down-stream. In that event it would seem thatnothing could save the couple from immediate drowning.
Neither the husband nor wife thought of this calamity until she calledout, under the stress of her new fear:
"Terry, the owld building can't stand this."
"What do ye maan, me darling?"
"I faal it moving under me as though its getting onaisy--oh! _we'reafloat_!"
The exclamation was true. The little structure, after resisting thegiant tugging at it as though it were a sentient thing, yielded whenit could hold out no longer. It popped up a foot or two like a cork,as if to recover its gravity, and the next moment started down thetorrent.
It was at this juncture that Terry uttered the despairing cry whichbrought Dick Halliard and Jim McGovern hurrying to the spot on theshore directly opposite.
But unexpected good fortune attended the shifting of the littlebuilding from its foundations. Swinging partly around, it driftedagainst the tree in which Terry had taken refuge with his child. Hiswife and Maggie were so near that he could touch them with hisoutstretched hand.
"Climb into the limbs," he said, "for the owld shebang will soon go topieces."
He could give little help, since he had to keep one arm about Katie,but the wife was cool and collected, now that she fully comprehendedher danger. The projecting limbs were within convenient reach, and ittook her but a minute or two to ensconce herself beside her husbandand other child.
Quick as was the action it was not a moment too soon, for she washardly on her perch and safely established by the side of all that wasdear to her when the house broke into a dozen fragments, the roofitself disintegrating, and every portion quickly vanished among thetree-tops in the darkness.
"Helloa, Terry, are you alive?" called Dick Halliard.
"We're all alive, Hiven be praised!" replied the Irishman, "and areroosting among the tree-tops."
"It will be all right with you then," was the cheery response, "for Idon't think the flood will rise any higher."
"Little odds if it does, for we haven't raiched the top story of ournew risidence yit."
Just then a dark object struck the ground at the feet of the boys,swinging around like a log of wood. Seeing what it was, Dick Halliardstooped down and drew it out of the current.
"What is it?" asked McGovern, in a whisper, seeing as he spoke that itwas a human body. "Great Heavens! it is Tom Wagstaff!"
"So it is," replied Dick, "and he is dead."
"And so is Bobb Budd!"
The Campers Out; Or, The Right Path and the Wrong Page 29