“A renegade! A rebel against
his king! A black-hearted traitor! You dare
to tell me that you love George Winthrop! Son
of canting, lying Ezra Winthrop! By the Eternal,
I’ll shoot him on sight if he comes this side!”
While old John Bedell was speaking,
he tore and flung away a letter, reached for his long
rifle on its pins above the chimney-place, dashed
its butt angrily to the floor, and poured powder into
his palm.
“For Heaven’s sake, father!
You would not! You could not! The war is
over. It would be murder!” cried Ruth Bedell,
sobbing.
“Wouldn’t I?” He
poured the powder in. “Yes, by gracious,
quicker’n I’d kill a rattlesnake!”
He placed the round bullet on the little square of
greased rag at the muzzle of his rifle. “A
rank traitor bone and blood of those who
drove out loyal men!” he crowded
the tight lead home, dashed the ramrod into place,
looked to the flint. “Rest there, wake
up for George Winthrop!” and the fierce old
man replaced rifle and powder-horn on their pegs.
Bedell’s hatred for the foes
who had beaten down King George’s cause, and
imposed the alternative of confiscation or the oath
of allegiance on the vanquished, was considered intense,
even by his brother Loyalists of the Niagara frontier.
“The Squire kind o’ sees
his boys’ blood when the sky’s red,”
said they in explanation. But Bedell was so much
an enthusiast that he could almost rejoice because
his three stark sons had gained the prize of death
in battle. He was too brave to hate the fighting-men
he had so often confronted; but he abhorred the politicians,
especially the intimate civic enemies on whom he had
poured scorn before the armed struggle began.
More than any he hated Ezra Winthrop, the lawyer,
arch-revolutionist of their native town, who had never
used a weapon but his tongue. And now his Ruth,
the beloved and only child left to his exiled age,
had confessed her love for Ezra Winthrop’s son!
They had been boy and girl, pretty maiden and bright
stripling together, without the Squire suspecting he
could not, even now, conceive clearly so wild a thing
as their affection! The confession burned in
his heart like veritable fire, a raging
anguish of mingled loathing and love. He stood
now gazing at Ruth dumbly, his hands clenched, head
sometimes mechanically quivering, anger, hate, love,
grief, tumultuous in his soul.
Ruth glanced up her father
seemed about to speak she bowed again,
shuddering as though the coming words might kill.
Still there was silence, a long silence.
Bedell stood motionless, poised, breathing hard the
silence oppressed the girl each moment her
terror increased expectant attention became
suffering that demanded his voice and still
was silence save for the dull roar of Niagara
that more and more pervaded the air. The torture
of waiting for the words a curse against
her, she feared overwore Ruth’s endurance.
She looked up suddenly, and John Bedell saw in hers
the beloved eyes of his dead wife, shrinking with
intolerable fear. He groaned heavily, flung up
his hands despairingly, and strode out toward the river.
How crafty smooth the green Niagara
sweeps toward the plunge beneath that perpetual white
cloud above the Falls! From Bedell’s clearing
below Navy Island, two miles above the Falls, he could
see the swaying and rolling of the mist, ever rushing
up to expand and overhang. The terrible stream
had a profound fascination for him, with its racing
eddies eating at the shore; its long weeds, visible
through the clear water, trailing close down to the
bottom; its inexorable, eternal, onward pouring.
Because it was so mighty and so threatening, he rejoiced
grimly in the awful river. To float, watching
cracks and ledges of its flat bottom-rock drift quickly
upward; to bend to his oars only when white crests
of the rapids yelled for his life; to win escape by
sheer strength from points so low down that he sometimes
doubted but the greedy forces had been tempted too
long; to stake his life, watching tree-tops for a
sign that he could yet save it, was the dreadful pastime
by which Bedell often quelled passionate promptings
to revenge his exile. “The Falls is bound
to get the Squire, some day,” said the banished
settlers. But the Squire’s skiff was clean
built as a pickerel, and his old arms iron-strong.
Now when he had gone forth from the beloved child,
who seemed to him so traitorous to his love and all
loyalty, he went instinctively to spend his rage upon
the river.
Ruth Bedell, gazing at the loaded
rifle, shuddered, not with dread only, but a sense
of having been treacherous to her father. She
had not told him all the truth. George Winthrop
himself, having made his way secretly through the
forest from Lake Ontario, had given her his own letter
asking leave from the Squire to visit his newly made
cabin. From the moment of arrival her lover had
implored her to fly with him. But filial love
was strong in Ruth to give hope that her father would
yield to the yet stronger affection freshened in her
heart. Believing their union might be permitted,
she had pledged herself to escape with her lover if
it were forbidden. Now he waited by the hickory
wood for a signal to conceal himself or come forward.
When Ruth saw her father far down
the river, she stepped to the flagstaff he had raised
before building the cabin his first duty
being to hoist the Union Jack! It was the largest
flag he could procure; he could see it flying defiantly
all day long; at night he could hear its glorious
folds whipping in the wind; the hot old Loyalist loved
to fancy his foeman cursing at it from the other side,
nearly three miles away. Ruth hauled the flag
down a little, then ran it up to the mast-head again.
At that, a tall young fellow came
springing into the clearing, jumping exultantly over
brush-heaps and tree-trunks, his queue waggling, his
eyes bright, glad, under his three-cornered hat.
Joying that her father had yielded, he ran forward
till he saw Ruth’s tears.
“What, sweetheart! crying?
It was the signal to come on,” cried he.
“Yes; to see you sooner, George.
Father is out yonder. But no, he will never,
never consent.”
“Then you will come with me,
love,” he said, taking her hands.
“No, no; I dare not,”
sobbed Ruth. “Father would overtake us.
He swears to shoot you on sight! Go, George!
Escape while you can! Oh, if he should find you
here!”
“But, darling love, we need
not fear. We can escape easily. I know the
forest path. But ” Then he thought
how weak her pace.
“We might cross here before
he could come up!” cried Winthrop, looking toward
where the Squire’s boat was now a distant blotch.
“No, no,” wailed Ruth,
yet yielding to his embrace. “This is the
last time I shall see you forever and forever.
Go, dear, good-bye, my love, my love.”
But he clasped her in his strong arms,
kissing, imploring, cheering her, and how
should true love choose hopeless renunciation?
Tempting, defying, regaining his lost
ground, drifting down again, trying hard to tire out
and subdue his heart-pangs, Bedell dallied with death
more closely than ever. He had let his skiff drift
far down toward the Falls. Often he could see
the wide smooth curve where the green volume first
lapses vastly on a lazy slope, to shoulder up below
as a huge calm billow, before pitching into the madness
of waves whose confusion of tossing and tortured crests
hurries to the abyss. The afternoon grew toward
evening before he pulled steadily home, crawling away
from the roarers against the cruel green, watching
the ominous cloud with some such grim humor as if
under observation by an overpowering but baffled enemy.
Approaching his landing, a shout drew
Bedell’s glance ashore to a group of men excitedly
gesticulating. They seemed motioning him to watch
the American shore. Turning, he saw a boat in
midstream, where no craft then on the river, except
his own skiff, could be safe, unless manned by several
good men. Only two oars were flashing. Bedell
could make out two figures indistinctly. It was
clear they were doomed, though still a
full mile above the point whence he had come, they
were much farther out than he when near the rapids.
Yet one life might be saved! Instantly Bedell’s
bow turned outward, and cheers flung to him from ashore.
At that moment he looked to his own
landing-place, and saw that his larger boat was gone.
Turning again, he angrily recognized it, but kept
right on he must try to rescue even a thief.
He wondered Ruth had not prevented the theft, but
had no suspicion of the truth. Always he had
refused to let her go out upon the river mortally
fearing it for her.
Thrusting his skiff mightily forward, often
it glanced, half-whirled by up-whelming and spreading
spaces of water, the old Loyalist’s
heart was quit of his pangs, and sore only with certainty
that he must abandon one human soul to death.
By the time that he could reach the larger boat his
would be too near the rapids for escape with three!
When George Winthrop saw Bedell in
pursuit, he bent to his ash-blades more strongly,
and Ruth, trembling to remember her father’s
threats, urged her lover to speed. They feared
the pursuer only, quite unconscious that they were
in the remorseless grasp of the river. Ruth had
so often seen her father far lower down than they had
yet drifted that she did not realize the truth, and
George, a stranger in the Niagara district, was unaware
of the length of the cataracts above the Falls.
He was also deceived by the stream’s treacherous
smoothness, and instead of half-upward, pulled straight
across, as if certainly able to land anywhere he might
touch the American shore.
Bedell looked over his shoulder often.
When he distinguished a woman, he put on more force,
but slackened soon the pull home would tax
his endurance, he reflected. In some sort it
was a relief to know that one was a woman;
he had been anticipating trouble with two men equally
bent on being saved. That the man would abandon
himself bravely, the Squire took as a matter of course.
For a while he thought of pulling with the woman to
the American shore, more easily to be gained from
the point where the rescue must occur. But he
rejected the plan, confident he could win back, for
he had sworn never to set foot on that soil unless
in war. Had it been possible to save both, he
would have been forced to disregard that vow; but the
Squire knew that it was impossible for him to reach
the New York Shore with two passengers two
would overload his boat beyond escape. Man or
woman one must go over the Falls.
Having carefully studied landmarks
for his position, Bedell turned to look again at the
doomed boat, and a well-known ribbon caught his attention!
The old man dropped his oars, confused with horror.
“My God, my God! it’s Ruth!” he
cried, and the whole truth came with another look,
for he had not forgotten George Winthrop.
“Your father stops, Ruth.
Perhaps he is in pain,” said George to the quaking
girl.
She looked back. “What
can it be?” she cried, filial love returning
overmasteringly.
“Perhaps he is only tired.”
George affected carelessness, his first
wish was to secure his bride, and pulled
hard away to get all advantage from Bedell’s
halt.
“Tired! He is in danger
of the Falls, then!” screamed Ruth. “Stop!
Turn! Back to him!”
Winthrop instantly prepared to obey.
“Yes, darling,” he said, “we must
not think of ourselves. We must go back to save
him!” Yet his was a sore groan at turning; what
Duty ordered was so hard, he must give up
his love for the sake of his enemy.
But while Winthrop was still pulling
round, the old Loyalist resumed rowing, with a more
rapid stroke that soon brought him alongside.
In those moments of waiting, all Bedell’s
life, his personal hatreds, his loves, his sorrows,
had been reviewed before his soul. He had seen
again his sons, the slain in battle, in the pride of
their young might; and the gentle eyes of Ruth had
pleaded with him beneath his dead wife’s brow.
Into those beloved, unforgotten, visionary eyes he
looked with an encouraging, strengthening gaze, now
that the deed to be done was as clear before him as
the face of Almighty God. In accepting it the
darker passions that had swayed his stormy life fell
suddenly away from their hold on his soul. How
trivial had been old disputes! how good at heart old
well-known civic enemies! how poor seemed hate! how
mean and poor seemed all but Love and Loyalty!
Resolution and deep peace had come upon the man.
The lovers wondered at his look.
No wrath was there. The old eyes were calm and
cheerful, a gentle smile flickered about his lips.
Only that he was very pale, Ruth would have been wholly
glad for the happy change.
“Forgive me, father,”
she cried, as he laid hand on their boat.
“I do, my child,” he answered.
“Come now without an instant’s delay to
me.”
“Oh, father, if you would let
us be happy!” cried Ruth, heart-torn by two
loves.
“Dear, you shall be happy.
I was wrong, child; I did not understand how you loved
him. But come! You hesitate! Winthrop,
my son, you are in some danger. Into this boat
instantly! both of you! Take the oars, George.
Kiss me, dear, my Ruth, once more. Good-bye, my
little girl. Winthrop, be good to her. And
may God bless you both forever!”
As the old Squire spoke, he stepped
into the larger boat, instantly releasing the skiff.
His imperative gentleness had secured his object without
loss of time, and the boats were apart with Winthrop’s
readiness to pull.
“Now row! Row for her life
to yonder shore! Bow well up! Away, or the
Falls will have her!” shouted Bedell.
“But you!” cried Winthrop,
bending for his stroke. Yet he did not comprehend
Bedell’s meaning. Till the last the old
man had spoken without strong excitement. Dread
of the river was not on George; his bliss was supreme
in his thought, and he took the Squire’s order
for one of exaggerated alarm.
“Row, I say, with all your strength!”
cried Bedell, with a flash of anger that sent the
young fellow away instantly. “Row!
Concern yourself not for me. I am going home.
Row! for her life, Winthrop! God will deliver
you yet. Good-bye, children. Remember always
my blessing is freely given you.”
“God bless and keep you forever,
father!” cried Ruth, from the distance, as her
lover pulled away.
They landed, conscious of having passed
a swift current, indeed, but quite unthinking of the
price paid for their safety. Looking back on
the darkling river, they saw nothing of the old man.
“Poor father!” sighed
Ruth, “how kind he was! I’m sore-hearted
for thinking of him at home, so lonely.”
Left alone in the clumsy boat, Bedell
stretched with the long, heavy oars for his own shore,
making appearance of strong exertion. But when
he no longer feared that his children might turn back
with sudden understanding, and vainly, to his aid,
he dragged the boat slowly, watching her swift drift
down down toward the towering mist.
Then as he gazed at the cloud, rising in two distinct
volumes, came a thought spurring the Loyalist spirit
in an instant. He was not yet out of American
water! Thereafter he pulled steadily, powerfully,
noting landmarks anxiously, studying currents, considering
always their trend to or from his own shore.
Half an hour had gone when he again dropped into slower
motion. Then he could see Goat Island’s
upper end between him and the mist of the American
Fall.
Now the old man gave himself up to
intense curiosity, looking over into the water with
fascinated inquiry. He had never been so far down
the river. Darting beside their shadows, deep
in the clear flood, were now larger fishes than he
had ever taken, and all moved up as if hurrying to
escape. How fast the long trailing, swaying, single
weeds, and the crevices in flat rock whence they so
strangely grew, went up stream and away as if drawn
backward. The sameness of the bottom to that
higher up interested him where then did
the current begin to sweep clean? He should certainly
know that soon, he thought, without a touch of fear,
having utterly accepted death when he determined it
were base to carry his weary old life a little longer,
and let Ruth’s young love die. Now the
Falls’ heavy monotone was overborne by terrible
sounds a mingled clashing, shrieking, groaning,
and rumbling, as of great bowlders churned in their
beds.
Bedell was nearing the first long
swoop downward at the rapids’ head when those
watching him from the high bank below the Chippewa
River’s mouth saw him put his boat stern with
the current and cease rowing entirely, facing fairly
the up-rushing mist to which he was being hurried.
Then they observed him stooping, as if writing, for
a time. Something flashed in his hands, and then
he knelt with head bowed down. Kneeling, they
prayed, too.
Now he was almost on the brink of
the cascades. Then he arose, and, glancing backward
to his home, caught sight of his friends on the high
shore. Calmly he waved a farewell. What then?
Thrice round he flung his hat, with a gesture they
knew full well. Some had seen that exultant waving
in front of ranks of battle. As clearly as though
the roar of waters had not drowned his ringing voice,
they knew that old John Bedell, at the poise of death,
cheered thrice, “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah
for the King!”
They found his body a week afterward,
floating with the heaving water in the gorge below
the Falls. Though beaten almost out of recognition,
portions of clothing still adhered to it, and in a
waistcoat pocket they found the old Loyalist’s
metal snuff-box, with this inscription scratched by
knife-point on the cover: “God be praised,
I die in British waters! JOHN BEDELL.”