The Making of William Edwards Part 34

At first old Mrs. Edwards felt as if she was to be a second time deposed. And she expected Elaine's town ways would clash with her country ones. But when she found that Elaine deferred to her as she had done to her own aunt, and was desirous to be instructed in all that pertained to her duties on the farm, there was no word too good for her 'clever son William's clever wife.'

Then she could already knit and spin, and had brought her own wheel, as well as a shelf of books, and something in hard cash, so that, as Davy said, she was 'quite an acquisition on the farm.'

William had built the house according to his enlarged ideas of domestic comfort. There were two storeys, and notwithstanding the very heavy tax on gla.s.s, it shone in every window, and these were of useful size. He had brought home along with his wife the bureau he had found so useful for his papers, and kept them and his books in a room set apart for himself.

With the completion of the bridge, he abandoned to John Llwyd the cottage he had erected on the river's side, his new furnace work being within sufficiently accessible distance of the farm, so long as he could leave his efficient foreman on the spot, and his workmen also. He was glad then he had erected permanent and commodious houses for the men, instead of temporary huts, since there was still employment for them all. Explorations for iron and coal were going on in the vicinity. These created a fresh demand for labour, and a corresponding demand for roofs to shelter the newcomers.

As he beheld the new colony of labourers and managers rising up, as it were, under his auspices, his heart swelled with pride and self-sufficient inflation.

'Ah, yes,' he would say to his wife, 'this is all my doing. I told Rhys I would be the greater man. Yes, he must own it now, if he would not then. Look at my wonderful bridge. It will stand for ever.'

He was saying something of the kind one morning, when his first-born, a boy he had named David after his brother, was about eighteen months old.

He had the child on his knee at the time.

Elaine had a shuddering dread upon her whenever she heard his boastful words.

'Yes, William dear,' she said soberly, 'we know your skill is great, but I wish you would not boast of the stability of your bridge so often. We, as well as the bridge, are in the hands of the Almighty!'

He put the child down hastily and rose to his feet. 'Surely, Elaine, you are not going to join the croakers? Rhys told me the other day, "Not to hold my head so high, for pride was sure to have a fall." Sure, I have a right to be proud if any one has.'

'_If?_' murmured Elaine under her breath; but he caught the doubtful word, and, s.n.a.t.c.hing at his hat, strode out of the house angrily.

A thick mantle of snow covered hill and valley, against which the whitewashed houses looked grey and dingy.

'It do be thawing fast,' said Davy to him as they met at the gate, he with a spade over his shoulder. 'I do hope the rain will be keeping off till the snow be all gone. But I don't be liking the looks of the clouds in the north-west.'

'Why not?' questioned William sharply.

Davy hesitated. 'Well, if the rain do come upon the melting snow, we shall be having heavy floods.'

'Well, and what then?' snappily.

"Deed, and I do be always thinking of the bridge when the floods come.'

'Pouf! the bridge is safe if a hundred floods come.' And on he went, ruffled, but wrapped in self-opinionated vanity. He had forgotten George Whitfield and his Master then.

Nevertheless, he went to take a look at the bridge and the river, on his way to the new ironworks, where his first furnace was already at work.

'Ah, well,' he thought, 'the water _is_ high; but, pouf! that is no flood.'

Towards afternoon a thin rain began to fall and liquefy the melting snow. As the men were leaving work, Llwyd came up to him with an anxious face and whispered, 'Master, the river do be desperately full, and if'--

William looked as if he could have struck his faithful monitor to the earth.

Yes, the river was rising and racing through the three arches with the swiftness of a torrent, surcharged with hay and straw, brushwood and mould, washed downward in its course, but they swept well under the bold archways and swirled away in eddies beyond.

'There can be no danger. Those piers are firm enough,' he muttered, as if to convince himself as well as Llwyd.

Dusk came down and blotted out the scene. In turning away he came upon Rhys, whose gloomy face it was well he could not see.

Llwyd and Davy too were there, with other watchers who had helped to rear the bridge.

'Tell Elaine I shall stay with Llwyd to-night,' said William to Davy. It was his first note of apprehension. Towards midnight he said, 'If the rain ceases there can be no danger.'

But the rain did not cease. As the night fled and the morning hours advanced, the winds came howling and tearing like demons down the Taff Valley, driving the pelting rain before them in a mad hurricane, fighting for mastery alike with tall green pines and the bare boughs of elms and gnarled oaks.

Gradually, as lapping waters undermined rocks and rugged banks, already loosened by frost and melting snows, along many a swollen mountain stream the surging torrent bore down their tributary reeds and shrubs and earth, along with riven boughs and uptorn trees, that beat like battering-rams against the good stone piers, holding their trust so st.u.r.dily. Then, eddying, the mighty current of the mocking Taff swung the tall fir-trees round and barred the still open arches cross-wise, one by one. Here, as in a net, the lamentable wreckage of the moors, of ruined cots and devastated farms, was caught and built up into a dam the turbid water could neither pa.s.s nor wash away. And rising, still rising, rising swifter than the rising sun, like a gigantic monster playing with boulder stones for bowls, the resistless river hammered with them against the parapet, and beat it in. Then, with a tumultuous roar as of triumph, and a deafening crash that startled sleepers in their beds more than a mile distant, the bridge that was built for centuries was swept away into irreparable ruin.

A shriek, as of mortal horror, rose as an echo from the crowded banks.

The three brothers and their friends looked in each other's whitened faces as the cost of the catastrophe cut keenly into their souls.

Rhys groaned aloud.

'There does never have been such an awful flood since I was born; no masonry whatever could be standing against it,' cried grey-headed Owen Griffith, as he leant upon his staff to bear up against the wind.

He had seen the darkening glances cast on the luckless architect, and interposed to spare him the reproaches of coa.r.s.e tongues.

'Keep that consolation for those who have run no risk. It will not be saving Cate and the rest from ruin and beggary, through this braggart brother of mine and his bridge,' burst from ungovernable Rhys.

'It may _save_ me and you all from ruin,' retorted William defiantly. 'I have discovered what a flood can do, and what must be guarded against.

Before the term of our guarantee expires, I will span this river with a bridge no flood shall wash away. 'Deed I will.'

A crowd had gathered. There were mocking voices heard beside Rhys'. A quarrel and a tumult threatened; for fierce as the war of the elements was the tempest raging in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of men who had been closest friends.

'Come away,' cried placable Davy, linking his arm within William's, and looking round him. 'When the Lord do be speaking men should be silent.

Yes, and before the breath of His nostrils the best man's handiwork will go down, look you.' And whispering something to his baited brother of 'home' and 'Elaine,' he drew him peaceably away.

_He_ had no word of reproach, though he had staked the savings of his life, equally with Rhys, and his forbearance silenced others, then and afterwards.

Nor did any reproaches or taunts meet William at his own fireside.

Rumour had run fleetfooted before them with the disastrous tidings. The shock had thus been antic.i.p.ated. Clasping arms and sympathetic words alone awaited him. 'It is the will of G.o.d,' said both mother and wife; 'it is useless to rebel.'

Strange to say, William Edwards was apparently the least cast down of any. In a day or two he had recovered much of his elasticity. He showed a brave face to friends and envious foes, and maintained that no man should forfeit his guarantee. He would replace the wrecked bridge with a better.

There were men who sneered; there were more who sympathised, for the rebuilding would be at his own cost, and would sweep away all his former gains. Yet all friends did not desert him. Mr. Morris and the Viscount defended him against malicious attacks on 'unqualified pretenders.' No one could deny the vehement pressure of the terrible flood.

His newer plan, a bridge of _a single arch_, and of a span unprecedented, was seen and approved.

Workmen were not far to seek. Almost with the subsidence of the waters labourers were at work removing the still upstanding remains of the old piers, the tenacity of the masonry giving the undaunted builder fresh hope.

On fresh foundations another bridge arose, Jonet's husband marvelling at the measurements supplied for the wooden framework.

'Yes,' said William, whose pride and self-a.s.sumption rose as he surveyed the magnificent proportions of his bridge, 'I defy any flood to beat that down. Look at its breadth and height! Any volume of water could sweep under that arch! Yes, indeed, if it brought half a forest down with it. The piers were the mistake before, Thomas.'

"Deed, yes!' a.s.sented the other.

The keystone of the arch had been laid; time had been given for cement to harden; the wooden framework of the arch was being removed when this was said; only the parapets were wanting, and on those the men were beginning.

Another day the last sc.r.a.p of timber was gone. Rhys had come down sullenly to the water's edge, weighted by his responsibility, and too doubtful of his brother's skill to give even his perseverance credit.