“I understand it, now,” he said, “and find I have been rather too confident. The ice, however, is safe and strong, and we have nothing to fear from its weakness. Perhaps it would be better to quit the river notwithstanding, though I am far from certain the better course will not be to push on.”
“Let us know the danger at once, Mr. Ten Eyck,” said Herman Mordaunt, “that we may decide for the best.”
“Why, sir, I am afraid that the rains and the thaw together, have thrown so much water into the river, all at once, as it might be, as to have raised the ice and broken it loose, in spots, from the shores. When this happens above, before the ice has disappeared below, it sometimes causes dams to form, which heap up such a weight as to break the whole plain of ice far below it, and thus throw cakes over cakes until walls twenty or thirty feet high are formed. This has not happened yet, therefore there is no immediate danger; but by bending your heads low, you can see that such a break has just taken place about half a mile below us.”
We did as Guert directed, and saw that a mound had arisen across the river nearer than the distance named by our companion, completely cutting off retreat by the way we had come. The bank on the west side of the Hudson was high at the point where we were, and looking intensely at it, I saw by the manner in which the trees disappeared, the more distant behind those that were nearer, that we were actually in motion! An involuntary exclamation caused the whole party to comprehend this startling fact at the same instant. We were certainly in motion, though very slowly, on the ice of that swollen river, in the quiet and solitude of a night in which the moon rather aided in making danger apparent than in assisting us to avoid it! What was to be done? It was necessary to decide, and that promptly and intelligently.
We waited for Herman Mordaunt to advise us, but he referred the matter at once to Guert’s greater experience.
“We cannot land here,” answered the young man, “so long as the ice is in motion, and I think it better to push on. Every foot will bring us so much nearer to Albany, and we shall get among the islands a mile or two higher, where the chances of landing will be greatly increased. Besides, I have often crossed the river on a cake, for they frequently stop, and I have known even loaded sleighs profit by them to get over the river. As yet there is nothing very alarming;—let us push on, and get nearer to the islands.”
This, then, was done, though there was no longer heard the laugh or the song among us. I could see that Herman Mordaunt was uneasy about Anneke, though he could not bring her into his own sleigh, leaving Mary Wallace alone; neither could he abandon his respectable connection, Mrs. Bogart. Before we re-entered the sleighs, I took an occasion to assure him that Anneke should be my especial care.
“God bless you, Corny, my dear boy,” Herman Mordaunt answered, squeezing my hand with fervour. “God bless you, and enable you to protect her. I was about to ask you to change seats with me; but, on the whole, I think my child will be safer with you than she could be with me. We will await God’s pleasure as accident has placed us.”
“I will desert her only with life, Mr. Mordaunt. Be at ease on that subject.”
“I know you will not—I am sure you will not, Littlepage; that affair of the lion is a pledge that you will not. Had Bulstrode come, we should have been strong enough to——but Guert is impatient to be off. God bless you, boy—God bless you. Do not neglect my child.”
Guert was impatient, and no sooner was I in the sleigh than we were once more in rapid motion. I said a few words to encourage the girls, and then no sound of a human voice mingled with the gloomy scene.
Chapter XVI
He started up, each limb convulsed
With agonizing fear,
He only heard the storm of night—
‘Twas music to his ear.
—Lord William
Away we went! Guert’s aim was the islands, which carried him nearer home, while it offered a place of retreat, in the event of the danger’s becoming more serious. The fierce rapidity with which we now moved prevented all conversation, or even much reflection. The reports of the rending ice, however, became more and more frequent, first coming from above, and then from below. More than once it seemed as if the immense mass of weight that had evidently collected somewhere near the town of Albany, was about to pour down upon us in a flood—when the river would have been swept for miles, by a resistless torrent. Nevertheless, Guert held on his way; firstly, because he knew it would be impossible to get on either of the main shores, anywhere near the point where we happened to be; and secondly, because, having often seen similar dammings of the waters, he fancied we were still safe. That the distant reader may understand the precise character of the danger we ran, it may be well to give him some notion of the localities.
The banks of the Hudson are generally high and precipitous, and in some places they are mountainous. No flats worthy of being mentioned, occur, until Albany is approached; nor are those which lie south of that town, of any great extent, compared with the size of the stream. In this particular the Mohawk is a very different river, having extensive flats that, I have been told, resemble those of the Rhine, in miniature. As for the Hudson, it is generally esteemed in the colony as a very pleasing river; and I remember to have heard intelligent people from home, admit, that even the majestic Thames itself, is scarcely more worthy to be visited, or that it better rewards the trouble and curiosity of the enlightened traveller. 26
While there are flats on the shores of the Hudson, and of some extent, in the vicinity of Albany, the general formation of the adjacent country is preserved,—being high, bold, and in some quarters, more particularly to the northward and eastward, mountainous. Among these hills the stream meanders for sixty or eighty miles north of the town, receiving tributaries as it comes rushing down towards the sea. The character of the river changes entirely, a short distance above Albany; the tides flowing to that point, rendering it navigable, and easy of ascent in summer, all the way from the sea. Of the tributaries, the principal is the Mohawk, which runs a long distance towards the west—they tell me, for I have never visited these remote parts of the colony—among fertile plains, that are bounded north and south by precipitous highlands. Now, in the spring, when the vast quantities of snow, that frequently lie four feet deep in the forests, and among the mountains and valleys of the interior, are suddenly melted by the south winds and rains, freshets necessarily succeed, which have been known to do great injury. The flats of the Mohawk, they tell me, are annually overflown, and a moderate freshet is deemed a blessing; but, occasionally, a union of the causes I have mentioned, produces a species of deluge that has a very opposite character. Thus it is, that houses are swept away; and bridges from the smaller mountain streams, have been known, to come floating past the wharves of Albany, holding their way towards the ocean. At such times the tides produce no counter-current; for it is a usual thing, in the early months of the spring, to have the stream pour downwards for weeks, the whole length of the river, and to find the water fresh even as low as New York.
Such was the general nature of the calamity we had been so unexpectedly made to encounter. The winter had been severe, and the snows unusually deep; and, as we drove furiously onward, I remembered to have heard my grandfather predict extraordinary freshets in the spring, from the character of the winter, as we had found it, even previously to my quitting home. The great thaw, and the heavy rains of the late storm, had produced the usual effect; and the waters thus let loose, among the distant, as well as the nearer hills, were now pouring down upon us in their collected might. In such cases, the first effect is,
