CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
THE "IMPOSSIBLE" ACCOMPLISHED.
And _what_ a dwelling Angus Macdonald's house had become!
"What a home-coming!" exclaimed Ian, thinking, in the bitterness of hissoul, of Elsie as well as the house.
"It's awful!" said Victor, with a sympathetic glance at his friend.
The desolation was indeed complete--symbolic, Ian thought, of thecondition of his own heart. Besides having eight or ten feet of wateron its walls, all the lower rooms were utterly wrecked. A heavy log,ready for the saw-pit, had come down with the torrent, and, taking uponit the duties of a battering-ram, had charged the parlour window. Notonly did it carry this bodily into the room, but it forced it into thepassage beyond, where it jammed and stuck fast. The butt of this log,projecting several feet from the window, had intercepted straw and hayto such an extent that a miniature stack was formed, in which all sortsof light articles of furniture and debris had been caught. With thestubborn determination of a Celt, Angus had refused to remove his maindoor, which faced up stream. The result was that the flood removed itfor him with a degree of violence that had induced Miss Martha toexclaim, "The house is goin' at last!" to which Angus had replieddoggedly.
"Let it go. It will hef to go some day, whatever." But the house hadnot gone. It was only, as we have said, the main door which went, andwas hurled through the passage into the kitchen, where it charged theback door, wrenched it off, and accompanied it to Lake Winnipeg with atail of miscellaneous cooking utensils. Only shreds of the back windowsremained hanging by twisted hinges to the frames, telling with muteeloquence of heroic resistance to the last gasp. Whatever had not beenremoved by Angus from the ground-floor of his house had been swept outat the windows and doorways, as with the besom of destruction.
Paddling in through the front door, the two friends disembarked fromtheir canoe on the staircase, and ascended to the upper floor. Hereeverything betokened a hurried departure. Furniture was strewn about indisorder; articles of clothing were scattered broadcast, as if MissMartha and her maid had been summoned to sudden departure, and hadrummaged recklessly for their most cherished possessions. In theprincipal bedroom, on the best bed, stood Beauty in her nativeugliness--the only living thing left to do the honours of the house.
"What a brute!" exclaimed Victor.
He seized a saucepan that stood handy, and hurled it at her. Beauty wasequal to the emergency; she leaped up, allowed the pan to pass underher, fled shrieking through the window, and took refuge on the top ofthe house.
"I'm glad you missed her, Vic," said Ian, in a slightly reproachfultone; "she's an old friend of the family, and a harmless thing."
"Miss Trim would not agree with you in your opinion of her," returnedVictor, with a laugh; "but I'm also glad I missed her. It was a suddenimpulse that I couldn't resist, and you know a fellow is scarcelyaccountable for his impulses."
"True; not for his impulses, but he is very accountable for actionsresulting from impulse. If you had killed Beauty I should have had anirresistible impulse to pitch you over the window. If I were to do soin such circumstances would you hold me unaccountable?"
"I'm not sure," said Victor, with a grim smile. "But we'll change thesubject; I don't like argument when I'm likely to get the worst of it.It's plain that you can do no good here, I therefore propose that wereturn to Willow Creek, take the small boat, and go up to the Mountainto see father, taking Tony and Petawanaquat along with us."
Ian shook his head with an expression of sadness that surprised hisfriend.
"No, Vic, no; my work with you in search of your brother is done, myfather's home now claims my chief care. You are wrong in saying I cando no good here; look round at the wreck and mess. There is much to bedone. Now I tell you what I'll do. I'll remain here all day and allnight too. You will return home and send me the little punt, if it canbe spared, for I shall have to row to the outhouses a good deal, andround the house too. As you see, nothing can be done without a craft ofsome sort. Send Peegwish with it, without Wildcat, she would only be inthe way."
Victor tried to induce his friend to change his mind, but Ian wasimmoveable. He therefore returned to Willow Creek in the canoe, andsent Peegwish back with the punt--a tub-like little boat, with two smalloars or sculls.
Left alone, Ian Macdonald leaned on the sill of a window in the gable ofthe house, from which he could see the house at Willow Creek, and sigheddeeply. "So then," he thought, "all my hopes are blighted; my aircastles are knocked down, my bear-hunting has been in vain; Elsie isengaged to Louis Lambert!"
There was no bitterness in his heart now, only a feeling of profoundloneliness. As he raised himself with another sigh, the top of thewindow tipped off his cap, which fell into the water. He cared littlefor the loss, but stood watching the cap as it floated slowly away withthe current, and compared its receding form with his dwindling joys.The current, which was not strong there, carried the cap straight to theknoll several hundred yards off, on which stood the smoking-box of oldSam Ravenshaw, and stranded it there.
The incident turned the poor youth's mind back to brighter days andother scenes, especially to the last conversation which he had held withthe owner of the smoking-box. He was mentally enacting that scene overagain when Peegwish pulled up to the house and passed under the window.
"Come along, you old savage," said Ian, with a good-humoured nod; "Iwant your help. Go round to the front and shove into the passage. Thedoorway's wide enough."
Peegwish, who was fond of Ian, replied to the nod with a hideous smile.In a few minutes the two were busily engaged in collecting loosearticles and bringing things in general into order.
While thus engaged they were interrupted by Beauty cackling andscreaming with tremendous violence. She was evidently in distress.Running up a ladder leading to the garret, Ian found that the creaturehad forced her way through a hole in the roof, and entangled herself ina mass of cordage thrown in a heap along with several stout ropes, orcables, which Angus had recently bought with the intention of riggingout a sloop with which to traverse the great Lake Winnipeg. Setting thehen free, Ian returned to his work.
A few minutes later he was again arrested suddenly, but not by Beautythis time. He became aware of a peculiar sensation which caused aslight throbbing of his heart, and clearly proved that, althoughlacerated, or even severely crushed, that organ was not quite broken!
He looked round at Peegwish, and beheld that savage glaring, as iftransfixed, with mouth and eyes equally wide open.
"Did you feel _that_, Peegwish?"
Yes, Peegwish had felt "that," and said so in an awful whisper withoutmoving.
"Surely--no, it cannot have been the--"
He stopped short. There was a low, grinding sound, accompanied by astrange tremor in the planks on which they stood, as if the house weregradually coming alive! There could be no mistake. The flood had risensufficiently to float the house, and it was beginning to slide from itsfoundations!
"Peegwish," he said, quickly dropping the things with which he had beenbusy, "is there a stout rope anywhere? Oh, yes; I forgot," he added,springing towards the attic. "Blessings on you, Beauty, for havingguided me here!"
In a few seconds a stout rope or cable was procured. The end of thisIan ran out at the main doorway, round through the parlour window, andtied it in a trice. The other end he coiled in the punt, and soon madeit fast to a stout elm, under whose grateful shade Angus Macdonald hadenjoyed many a pipe and Martha many a cup of tea in other days. Thetree bent slowly forward; the thick rope became rigid. Ian and Peegwishsat in the boat anxiously looking on.
In that moment of enforced inaction Ian conceived an idea! Thought isquick, quicker than light, which, we believe, has reached the maximum of"express speed" in material things. By intermittent flashes, so rapidthat it resembled a stream of sparks, the whole plan rushed through hismind, from conception to completion. We can only give a suggestiveoutline, as follows. The knoll, the smoki
ng-box, the smoker, his words,"Mark what I say. I will sell this knoll to your father, and give mydaughter to you, when you take that house, and with your own unaidedhands place it on this knoll!" The impossible had, in the wondrouscourse of recent events, come just within the verge of possibility--astout arm, a strong will, coupled with a high flood--"There is a tide inthe affairs of men, which, taken at the flood,"--immortal and_prophetic_ bard! There could be no chance of Elsie now, but even towin the right to claim her if she had been willing was better thannothing. In any case old Angus and the knoll would be united!
"Peegwish!" shouted Ian, turning on the unfortunate ex-brewer with aflushed face and blazing eyes that caused him to shrink in alarm, "canyou sit still and _do nothing_?"
"Eh?" exclaimed Peegwish, in surprise.
"Bah!" said Ian, seizing the sculls.
The punt whirled round, leaped over the water, dashed through thedoorway, and went crashing into the staircase. Before Peegwish couldpick himself up, Ian had vanished up the stairs. The savage found him amoment later wildly selecting a rope from the heap that lay on the floorof the attic. As Peegwish entered, Ian suddenly turned on him with agaze of increased intensity. Had the young man gone mad? Peegwish feltvery uncomfortable. He had some reason to! Another thought had flashedinto Ian's mind--the words "your own unaided hands" troubled him.Peegwish could be kept out of the boat, but he could not be kept fromrendering aid of some sort, in some way or other. There was but oneresource.
Ian sprang on Peegwish like a lion. The savage was both bold andstrong, but he was elderly, and Ian was young and bolder; besides, hehad the unusual strength of a half-madman at that moment. Down went theex-brewer. He struggled hard. Ian crushed him in his arms, raised him,crammed him into a chair, seized a pliant rope and bound him therewith,winding him and the chair round and round in his haste--for there was notime to tie knots--until he resembled a gigantic spool of ravelledthread. Not a moment too soon! There was a snap outside; the rope wasgone! A grind, a slide, and then a lurch, as of a ship at sea.
Ian is on the staircase now, in the punt, and out upon the flood with astout rope fast to the stern and to the door-post. Panting from hisrecent exertions, and half-wild with the mingled excitement, danger,novelty, and fun of the thing, he draws two or three long breaths as hegrasps the sculls and looks quickly round.
The house moves sluggishly, probably retarded by sunken shrubs, ordragging debris connected with the foundation. This is somewhat of arelief. There is time. He pulls ahead till the rope tightens, and thenstands up in the punt to observe the situation critically. The currentis bearing him straight towards the knoll. So far well; but there aretwo slightly diverging currents on right and left, caused by the knollitself, which are so strong that if the house should get fairly intoeither of them no power that he possessed could prevent its being swept,on the one hand, into the main current of the Red River, on the otherhand away over the flooded plains. To watch with lynx eyes theslightest tendency to divergence on the part of the house now absorbshis whole being. But thought again intervenes. What if he should beobserved by those at Willow Creek, and they should send assistance?horror! But by good fortune all the males at the Creek have departed,and none are left but women. He casts one of the lynx glances in thatdirection--no one is coming. He breathes again, freely. Suddenly thehouse diverges a little to the right. Away flies the punt to the left,and he is just about to bend to the sculls with the force of Goliath,when he perceives his mistake--the divergence was to the _left_! Inagonies of haste he shoots to the other side, where he discovers thatthe divergence must have been in his own excited brain, for the housestill holds on the even tenor of its way; and Ian, puffing straightahead, tightens the rope, and helps it on its voyage.
Presently there is a sudden, and this time a decided divergence to theright--probably caused by some undercurrent acting on the foundations.Away goes the punt in the opposite direction, and now Goliath andDavid together were babes to Ian! Talk of horse-power.Elephanto-hippopotamus-Power is a more appropriate term. The muscles ofhis arms rise up like rolls of gutta-percha; the knotted veins stand outon his flushed forehead, but all in vain--the house continues todiverge, and Ian feeling the game to be all but lost, pulls with theconcentrated energy of rage and despair. The sculls bend like wands,the rowlocks creak, the thole-pins crack. It won't do. As well mightmortal man pull against Niagara falls.
At this moment of horrible disappointment the house touches somethingsubmerged--a post, a fence, a mound; he knows not nor cares what--whichchecks the divergence and turns the house back in the right direction.
What a rebound there is in Ian's heart! He would cheer if there were acubic inch of air to spare in his labouring chest--but there is not, andwhat of it remains must be used in a tough pull to the opposite side,for the sheer given to the building has been almost too strong. In afew minutes his efforts have been successful. The house is bearingsteadily though slowly down in the right direction.
Ian rests on his oars a few seconds, and wipes his heated brow.
So--in the great battle of life we sometimes are allowed to pause andbreathe awhile in the very heat of conflict; and happy is it for us ifour thoughts and hearts go out towards Him whose love is ever near tobless those who trust in it.
He is drawing near to the knoll now, and there seems every chance ofsuccess; but the nearer he draws to the goal the greater becomes therisk of divergence, for while the slack water at the head of the knollbecomes slacker, so that the house seems to have ceased moving, thediverging currents on either side become swifter, and theirsuction-power more dangerous. The anxiety of the pilot at this stage,and his consequent shooting from side to side, is far more trying thanhis more sustained efforts had been.
At last the punt reaches the smoking-box, which itself stands in severalfeet of water, for the ground of the knoll is submerged, its bushesalone being visible. There is only the length of the rope now betweenour hero and victory! In that length, however, there are innumerablepossibilities. Even while he gazes the house bumps on something, slewsround, and is caught by the current on the right. Before Ian has timeto recover from his agony of alarm, and dip the sculls, it bumps againand slews to the left; a third favouring bump sends it back into theslack water. The combined bumps have given an impulse to the houseunder the influence of which it bears straight down upon the knoll withconsiderable force. Its gable-end is close to the smoking-box.Entranced with expectancy Ian sits in the punt panting and with eyesflashing. There is a sudden shock! Inside the house Peegwish and hischair are tumbled head over heels. Outside, the gable has justtouched--as it were kissed--the smoking-box, Elsie's "summer-house;"Beauty, flapping her wings at that moment on the ridge-pole, crows, andAngus Macdonald's dwelling is, finally and fairly, hard and fast uponSam Ravenshaw's knoll.