Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1877 — THE MUSIC OF THE WATERS. [ARTICLE]

THE MUSIC OF THE WATERS.

And so all I had to do was to go into the country and enjoy myself for six weeks—that is what it came to. Why, if anyone had struck me with a feather at the moment the doctor uttered his verdict I should certainly have been knocked down; fortunately, no such atrocity was attempted, so I maintained as erect a posture as my enfeebled health would allow until the eminent licentiate of the College of Physicians, whom I was consulting, begged me to resume my seat. “ You are utterly smoke-dried,” he said. “ London or tobacco ?" I inquired. “Both,” he answered. “No physic; fresh air is all you want—mountain air, if possible; perfect rest and quiet; abstemious habits, early hours and no tobacco.” “But," I feebly protested, “I don’t care about the country; how am I to fill up my time ?” “ Nonsense; you know nothing of it, from your own showing; and as to occupation, anything will do, so that you keep clear of your ledgers. Fish, sketch, idle, read poetry and light novels; go and steep yourself in greenery, refresh your senses with rural sights and sounds; go and look at trees and fields, listen to the birds and the music of running waters; follow this out, and you will be a different man in six weeks.” “ And then?" I blankly inquired. “ Then ? 0, then,” he answered, “ get married and settle down.” If certainly was fortunate I was not standing up at that moment, for it would not have needed a touch of the aforesaid feather to have laid me low. As it was I sank back in my chair aghast. “ Get married!” I thought; I who was utterly insensible to female attractions, and who had been always taught to have an eye to the main chance, and regard matrimony as a clog, unless associated with a great heiress. I get married on a salary of £3OO a year ? Whew! I left Savile Row with scarce another wofd, convinced that for real downright, unpractical men there were none to compare with doctors. Thus I took the plunge, and within five days found myself at a snug little inn in North Wales, hard by a celebrated spot known as the “Devil’s Bridge,” a few miles inland from Aberystwith. I confess at once to having been a little astonished and pleased at the beauty of the scenery. The unexpected novelty, I felt, would keep me going for some time. The change soon refreshed me. I was astonished at feeling neither dull nor lonely—for the tourist season had hardly set in, and 1 had the little inn well-nigh to myself. Bo I wandered about and gazed wonderingly at all I saw, especially at the deep, craggy, wooded gorge or mountain river-bed across which his Satanic Majesty’s engineering skill was supposed to have been displayed. As I stood looking down upon it from the bridge near the inn, it certainly seemed

to me a wondrously romantic spot. Sleep rock-bound banks, crowned with trees, hemmed in the rushing, foaming river, its channel becoming irregularly narrower and more precipitous as it reached the head of the valley in the depths of which it lay. Here there was a waterfall, as I then thought, of stupendous magnitude, and yet a little higher up, a second still larger. As 1 made my way down to the river by a well-worn path through a wood, the sound of the descending waters, as, wafted on the soft summer breeze, it rose and fell in liquid cadence, fascinated me from the very first. At a distance it was but a murmur; but as I drew nearer I seemed to fancy that melodies innumerable were growing out of it—w.ild, unequal melodies, that touched chords in my nature of the existence of which I had hitherto been ignorant. I had cared no more for music than for any other of the refining, softening influences of life, and now there seemed to be awakening in me an entirely new man. I did not kuow myself, and the fascination led me on irresistibly. Now I would stop and tilt my head from side to side, listening to the varieties of sound I thus gained. Then, after advancing a little to increase the strength of tone, I would retreat so that the delicate decline of power should be made to add another charm. In this fashion I literally spent some hours before I actually reached the verge of the torrent, and ex- ' perienced in its full force the tremendous roar of the rushing waters. Why, here was occupation for weeks, I thought, in merely listening to these beautiful noises; and had not the doctor told me that this was one of the ways in which I should employ myself ? Had he not said • “ Listen to the music of running water?" Well, I never expected to find a holiday diversion in such a pursuit; but here it was, and for a whole fortnight I gave myself up to this delicious idleness. Then, as if farther to develop the unsuspected music, poetry, or whatever you may choose to call it, of my nature, I found among the few coffee-room books a copy of Southey’s poems. Instinctively I read again and again, “ How does the water come down at Lodore!" I took the volume down to the wood, to the water’s edge, to the very foot of my waterfall, which seemed to me to be doing all that the poet described as possible under the> circumstances. The weather hitherto had been superb, midsummer sunshine, and not a drop of rain. The sunshine glinting through the trees; —lmpure sky above; the song of the birds, not yet all hushed, in the woods; the fresh breezy odors—these all became such novelties and charms as I had never conceived possible. But seated on my isolated rock, it was still, after ail, out of the “ music of the waters" that I got my chief mental enjoyment. • At last there wa a sudden change of -wind. Heavy clouds swept over the landscape, burying in mist or occasional showers all forms save those close st hand.' “ Regular Welsh weather, sir!” said a fresh-colored elderly gentlemanlike man

in a tourist’s suit, whom I found the next morning in the coffee-room. “My party will be house-bound for a couple of days at least, if I know anything of thia country ; shocking place for weather. Been here long, sir?” I told him how long, and that I had not had a drop of rain the whole time. “ Disadvantage in that too," he went on; “mountainous scenery wants mist and rain to drift round the peaks, fill up the torrents and bring out the waterfalls. This one here will present a fine sight after another four-ana-twenty hours of such weather; it was a mere dribble last night when we arrived.” I was consoled by this gentleman’s words; for, having to spend the best part of the day indoors, there was a new sensation then yet in store for me; and I was a little disappointed to find, when early the following afternoon a lull in the weather enabled me to go down to my favorite rocky haunt, that there was very little perceptible difference in the volume of water coming over the fall. Bo here I sat, 1 suppose, for more than an hour in my accustomed state of placid indolent enjoyment. With eyes halfshut I was saying over to myself the first few lines of Southey’s “ Lodore,” and trying to make “ the music of the waters” fit them as an accompaniment, when there suddenly sounded in my ears a roar so loud, and increasing so rapidly in volume, that I started, and, looking up, perceived that now, indeed, the fall had become grandly augmented. It was swollen at least to twice the size it had been ten minutes before; it looked magnificent. I stood up quite excited, but not even then for one moment dreaming of danger. Town-bred idiot that I was, ?[uile unacquainted with the terrific urce of the elements when once unloosed, I never imagined for a second that I could be placed in peril by a fact so beautiful as thh now before me. In the exaggeration which ignorance gave to my estimate of wonders, I thought I was gazing at a harmless Niagara; I had never seen anything half so beautiful; whilst the almost deafening, thunderous roar which accompanied it was such a new phase of my favorite music that I stood spellbound with a sort of wild delight. Not for many minutes, however; a heavy rain-cloud that had suddenly overswept the sky warned me to retreat. I turned with this purpose toward the stepping, stones by which I always regained the precipitous bank of the river. To my horror they had all disappeared, and in their place a boiling, bubbling ferment of brown water and frothy foam was sweeping along at a tremendous pace. Then, in an instant, I knew the river was rising rapidly. Anyone but a fool would have foreseen this as the natural consequence of the increase in the waterfall. Right and left and all around the river had now become a boiling caldron of broken water; I was cut oft from all hope of retreat, and should be washed away like a fly, I knew. Helpless and scared, I stood irresolute yet a moment longer. I recollect in this dire emergency suddenly observing a still further increase in the volume of the fall, and almost simultaneously with it feeling my legs slip from under me as the brown water gurgled in my ears and glistened in my eyes. Then there was a choking, helpless, tumbling pressure forward, several sharp blows upon my legs and arms, an effort to strike out, met by coming in contact with more rocks, and then a whirl and twirl and a spinning round as if I had been a cork. The swimmer’s Instinct, however, was of some use after all, for, in the first place, it enabled me to retain a little presence of mind, and, in the second, to bring my head up to the surface after the first plunge. I saw I was already a long way from the upper fall, and an additional S was given to my sensations by the lection that I was being hurried on toward the lower, over which if I were carried I must inevitably be drowned. Fortunately, just now I was carried by a current close in under one of these sheerdown sides, and for the fiftieth time sent spinning round in the eddy like a cork. I made a hopeless grab at the smooth and slippery surface, much as the drowning man catches at the proverbial straw, for 1 was by this lime getting exhausted and suffocated by toe constant rolling over whicn the torrent gave me. I did just manage to get a finger-hold in a crack, and to steady myself somewhat; but the water was very deep just here, and I could not lift much more than my chin above it, whilst a foothold of any sort was out of the question. Yet to remain where I was much longer was impossible. Could I but have raised myself some two feet I should have been able to reach an overhanging bough of one of the thickly-growing young ash-sap-lings, the roots of which projected from the earthy top of the rock a yard or two above.

O, how I longed for a giant’s arm, that I might touch that bough! Twice I made a futile effort to spring out of the waler at it, but only exhausted myself, and had the greatest difficulty in retaining my support. Was I sinking and losing consciousness ? and is this to be the end, I thought, with that music still in my ears? And, 10l what vision is that which I behold? Surely an angel’s face looking down from amidst the leafy roof above me! Yes; my life must be passing away in a dream of beautiful sights and sounds. For a moment or two more such was the vague conclusion floating through my dazed mind, nor was it at once dispelled by a perfectly audible and silvery voice, saying: “ Try to reach it now; I think you can; quick, try." This can be no illusion; this is no phantom born of a drowning man’s fancy; this is a sweet reality; and in that bending branch, now steadily descending to within my grip, 1 see my life restored to me and my hopes renewed. I have the delicate end of the bough in in my hand; yes, automatically I have seized it, and already it helps to lift me higher out of the water. “Be very cautious," says the voice once more. “ Take great care, or It will snap. There, wait so, whilst I pull this strong one down, and that will bold your weight better; now, so;” and in another minute I have grasped this stronger one; I manage to raise myself by it a little, and to put the tips of my toes into the fissure of the rock by which I had so long held with the tip of my fingers. Then a soft, firm hand is held out to me and, taking it, I finally, by one supreme effort, pull myself well up among the underwood ana twisted roots at the top of the cliff. Too exhausted to think or speak, I threw myself down upon the steep hill-side, among the long grass and ferns, between the trees. Then I Ihink I did really lose consciousness for a while, for I do not remember seeing the pretty, graceful girl who had saved my lire, until I found her kneeling at my side, endeavoring to raise my head, as she wiped the streaming water from my forehead and hair. “Wait here," she said, ‘‘and I willrun to the inn for help; I won’t be long. There, lean against that tree-trunk.” “Pray, slop,’’ I stammered, feebly; “1 shall soon be all right. lam really very, much obliged to you.” •‘ Oh, never mind answered, brightly; “if you can walk, so much the better. Get up, and come along at once; you must get your wet clothes on.” I rose and shook myself, tecllng Very bewildered, sick and scared. “ Here—up this way,” she cried, "I think we can get through the wood this way; follow me.” I had scarcely started after her, as with a firm light step she sprang up the slope among the trees, when I heard from the top a cry of:

“Hilly-ol Lucy, hilly-o! where are “ Here I am," she cried, “ all right. Come down, papa, and give this gentleman a hand. I have just helped him out of the water—he wae nearly drowned!" “ What? Eh, my dear? What are you talking about ? Gentleman out of the water—nearly drowned t" said a cheery voice; and looking up, I saw two or three figures coming against the sky over the crest of the hill. Then there was a little hurried talk as they met my preserver, and presently my middle-aged friend, who had spoken to me about the weather at the inn the day before had a vise-like hold upon my arm, and was lending me very material assistance in my ascent. “What a fortunate thing! Only to think,” he said, “of Lucy happening to see you! We were wandering about, and she had gone on ahead by herself to look at the fall: then all of a sudden we missed her and wondered what had become of her; and then, lo and behold! all the time she was qualifying for the Royal Humane Society’s medal. You are not accustomed to mountain rivers, sir, I am • afraid; they are very treacherous, and are often suddenly swollen in this way when rain begins in the hills after a long drought; it’s what they call a “spate” in the Highlands. But stay, you are exhausted ; take a nip of whisky out of my flask here.” We had stopped that I might do this, when a second young Indy, evidently a sister of my guardian angel, came running down toward us, exclaiming: “O, papa, do come up quick; Lucy has fainted. She was just beginning to tell us all about it, when in a moment she went quite off.” Whereupon revived by the stimulant, I hastened up the remainder of the slope in company with my new friends, to find the brave girl quite insensible, her head resting on the lap <of a lady, evidently her mother. ——■— Then the cheery gentleman put the whisky flask to tis daughter’s lips, and all solicitude, very properly, was turned from me to her; but she soon revived, and then, but not till then, I allowed myself to be hurried off to the inn to get dry clothes. Thete, and a little hot stimulant, soon put me to rights, with no further damage from my ducking than a few superficial bruises and scratches. But what was this tremendous internal wound that I suddenly became conscious of ?—that had not inflicted by projecting rocks or slippery crags or foaming water! No; of a certainty that was the result of a sympathetic glance from a pair of bright brown eyes, which had gone straight to my heart from the moment they had looked down upon me in my peril. 4 Was I on the eve, then, of another great discovery ? Was it not enough that I bad found lately that there were other sights and sounds worth listening to than are supplied by London streets, other elevating emotions than those referable to arithmetic and book-keeping by double entry, but that I must have thrust upon me also the fact that there was really something v-orth living for besides one’s self and making money? It seemed so! As I had been taken by surprise by the pleasure to be extracted from a quiet country life, so equally was I now suddenly awakened to the possibility of what the Doctor had called “settling down.” There absolutely appeared a chance of my taking to the idea, and of so carrying out his prescription to the letter. What a wonderful and beneficent effect it was working! “ Why, there she is in Ure garden at this moment, and how beautiful she looks! Now that 1 have made myself presentable," I thought, “ I will go down immediately and thank her like a coherent being and a gentleman.” She was sitting in a little arbor at the end of the inn garden. As*l approached, a blush, the more evident from the paleness which her undue exertion and subsequent faintness had left, overspread her sweet sac angel face, which I had at first thought a dream, and which to me now, w‘th my newly-awakened poetical sensibilities, scarcely seemed a reality. I cannot describe it. Why should!? Other people would not see .it with my eyes; there were hundreds and hundreds of faces in the world doubtless far more beautiful. “ I hope you are feeling better," 1 said. “ I am afraid that what you have done for me has overtaxed your strength; I shall never forgive myself if it has made you seriously ill.” “Oh, no,” she answered, “ I was only a little out of breath with ibe running and the scramble through the brushwood and trees; but I was sure that if I was to be of any use there was no time to be lost. Please don’t say any more about it.” “ Oh, but indeed I must; you must tell me how you saw me and how you were able to reach me.” “ Oh, I had merely gone down to look at the waterfall—l knew it would be very much swollen—and the moment I came upon it, to my horror and surprise, I saw you standing upon that rock in the middle of the river. I felt sure that you would be drowned; but before I could even call out you were washed off it and I saw you earned away. Well, I don’t know what it was that made me do it, but I ran along through the wood by the side of the river as fast as I could. I don’t suppose I thought of being able to save you, but it all seemed so dreadful; and then I lost sight of you. But I still ran on to near the top of the second fall, and got close down to try if I could see you; the trees were so thick up above that I was obliged to get close to the edge. I was looking all about for you, when I suddenly saw you just underneath where I was standing, and trying to reach that bough.' Well, then 1 pushed it down to you, that’s all.”

“Ah, indeed!” I cried. “ Can I ever repay you for that ‘all?’ You simply saved my life; I should never have got out but for you.” “ Hope you are not much the worse for your ducking, sir?" here broke in her father’s voice. “ I and my wife hope that you will give us the pleasure of your company at dinner thia evening; you must be a little dull and lonely here.. by yourself.” Of course I would, and of course 1 did, and of course, too, I spent the very pleasantest evening I had ever known in my life. I told die family who I was and all about myself; and tliey told me a good deal about themselves —father, mother and two daughters—and how they had come out for their annual run, as they called it, and how they often made very pleasant acquaintances on their little touts. “But it’s not often;” said my host, “ that we make one in this fashion; it is not to be wished. We don’t expect to become heroines of a domestic drama every day. Ha, ha! but, by Jove, it was very lucky Lucy saw you.” And so on, and so on. ; After this evening followed a succession of the most delightful hours I had ever known; morning, evening and noon were spent in the company of my new acquaintances, and at the end of a very short time those acquaintances had become fast friends. I was as completely over head and ears in love as I had been over head and ears in the turbulent water, and I told her so. .. / - n ßave me once more,” Isaid; ~g ive me that hand once again, and let it be mine fofever; otherwise it-would have been kinder to have left me to drown out right” She dropped her head, but held out her hand, that hand which at this moment has just touched my arm, as a silvery voice Billy, stop; I have been peeping over your shoulder. You need aot write any more; people can guess the rest. I would rather you did not enter into details."

“ Very well, dear," I answered; “as it is nearly twenty years ago since it all happened, perhaps you are right. Yes. settled down for twenty years: who would think it! And in a week or two we must be off, for the nineteenth time together, on another holiday diversion. What shall it be, and where shall we find it?" “O, I am still all for the country, you know,” she cries. “I am never tired of rural sights and sounds.” “Nor I,” is my reply; “we’ll go where — “ • Gtenlle wind* and water* near Make mualc to the lonely ear,’ as Byron says. Fancy my quoting Byron! What a transformation in a man! Only we shall not be lonely, shall we?" “Indeed, no,” she says; “we will only take care not to sit in the dry beds of mountain streams when we want to listen to ‘the music of the waters.’ "—London Society.