THE STORY OF A WOMAN'S COURAGE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 26, 19 October 1888, Page 23

THE STORY OF A WOMAN'S COURAGE.

Kate Mitchell was one of those unfortunate women whose surplus physical energies distinguish them from others of their sex. As a child •he was known at a "tomboy," and prim mothers held her up as an awful warning to their little daughters ; while in her own home the question of how to subdue her buoyant spirits was wrestled over with true maternal solicitude. When she grew up, society frowned upon her as a " hoyden," and her way was beset with thorns. At eighteen she could row, and swim, and ride, and play lawn tennis like a boy. She was a great walker, and upon one occasion had walked to Mount Diablo and back ia two days, with her brother and a couple of friends — a feat which alone would have sufficed to pbee her under a ban in San Francisco's best society. That she sang like a bird, danced like a sylph, and was, altogether, a very amiable, pureminded girl, was a small offset for the sum of her iniquities, and although she was exceedingly popular among a set of young and irresponsible boy*, conservative circles frowned upon her, and it was generally understood that she was a young person of most radical and dangerous tendencies. It was, therefore, a matter of polite regret when the announcement of her coming nuptial with one of this same conservative circle was received. Tom Midaleton was a promising young lawyer, of excellent family and irreproachable manners. It had been generally understood that Tom's ideal was of a different type, and more after the pattern of the elegant society women with whom he had been accustomed to associate. His intimate friend and boon companion, Jack Spencer, who had always ditapproved of Kate, undertook to pose as the mouthpiece of Bociety, ai d echoed its sentiments in Tom's unwilling ear. Tom stood staunchly hy his colours, but his friead's words sank deep imo his soul, nevertheless. He secretly resolved that, for his sake and her own, Kate must be '• tone i down."' Be succeeded e^en beyond his hopes. Nine years after her marpage, few would have recognised in the quiet, repressed woman the gay and spiri'ed girl of former days. Kate was fond of her husband, and the alchemy of love had wrought the change : but it is a danerous thing to mtdd c with spiritual chemistry as well as the forces of the material world, and if Tom had known what pent-up longings and rebellious inclinations raged beneath his wife's quiet exterior he might have repented hissuccess. Bat he wenton callously and blindly, asmen will when dealing witn delicate forces which they cannot understand, and Kate kept her grievances to herself. Two child) ea came — the elder a girl, a fiery, untamed little creature, who made the mother's heart ache, as she saw in the child a reflex of herself , the other, a boy, sturdy, deliberate, like his father. Whoa the children grew larger and needed room ior etprciae and outdoor air, which their city home would not afford, they took up their lesidence in a little country home, not so far away but that Tom cjuld travel back and t'oith daily and attend to hiß business aud it is heie that our story finds them. One grey December day, Kate stoo 1 at her window, gazing out upon the landscape. It had been a dull, tiresome week. Several days before Tom had started off on a lona'-promised vacation, which was to be dedicated to a. hunt in the mountains, in company with a party of friends. She was tLinking, with envy, of this bunting party, and wondering, half-bitterly, why amusements that were conceded to be proper an i healthful tor men should not be healthful and proper tor women. How she would havo enjoyed the long tramps over the hills, the excitement of the hunt, the joy of holding a goud gun on her shoulder, and knowing that she could sight and shoot with the best cf them ! She felt a wicked tolace as she thought ot the showers that had fallen in the valley and the clouds that had hung constantly over ihe mountains. She was lonely, dull and cross, and chafed against her hedged-in lifj, with its narrow boundaries, its senseless restiaint?. There was a rush of feet through the hoti'c ; the door of her room opened, and the children burst in. " Mamma, the creek is up ' Take us down to see it ! " The childish longing for novelty and excitement found an instant echo in her heart. They ha r l run in from outdoor play, and were bonneted and clocked, with rubber overshoes to protect their feet from the damp earth. As for her, it was rt freshing to evade Bridget's vigilant eye, and to steal out of the front dojr in her loose houaedress, bare-headed, and with worsted slippers on her leet. They followed a garden pith fur a li'tU* distance, and then entered a narrow lane leading to a place wh'ie they were accustomed to ford in the summer time, but over which now swept a see bing, tempestuous flood. As they looked and listened. Kate realised that this was no ordinary tr<sshet. but ttn> product ot a heavy rainfall over the whole vast watershed, which had accumulated us forces in thousands of tiny rivulets, and. joining issue with the mouaum stieam, plunged down us narrow channel, a mighty and ni-e&utibla power. Even as they looked &he s.iw a wall of water suddenly rear up above and come down towards them like a miniature tidal wave, g The dam built by the new water company had given way 1 They ran back from the shore to Liuher ground, and not a moment too soon. The stream ros? several feet in a second. It cnt into the solid banks on either side, and bushes and young trees looted up and sucked it by the greedy current, went spinning by. A giant sycamore wavered, flung out its bare and skeleton limbs as if in ghostly protest, and fell lar out into the stream, interlocking

its branches with a sturdy evergreen oak which stood on the opposite bank, while its trunk, loosely anchored by long, make-lite roots, tossed helplessly in mid-stream . "Mamma, see the big boards coming?" cried out her little daughter. Kate looked far up the stream, and saw a great timber sailing leisurely along. Now it caught on a projecting mag and swung halt about, now it caught on a submerged island, and idly disengaged itsself and sauntered on. Behind it was another, and yet another— the stream was black with them. " Oh, my God ! The railroad bridge I " The railroad bridge, and the afternoon train now nearly due aoon to rush down a steep grade to a leap into that yawning chasm* Her first impure was to start up the canon, but she instantly, checked hertelf. What folly, when miles of overflow lay between her and the doomed train I Word must be sent to the station, and from there a telegram to the next stopping place above the bridge. But how ? The hired man I Jim had gone an hour b afore to the village to get the mail, and have his daily gossip with the loungeri of the place. Even if he were here, neither horse nor man was fleet enough to cover the circutous road that lay between. Then the looked at the prostrate sycamore. Down the stream, leisurely, but nearer and nearer still sailed the great timbers. " Marian, take little brother, and go straight to the house aod stay there till mamma comes back." She had already pulled herself up by one of the roots and was creeping steatbily along the swaying trunk. Here her dress caught on a branch ; there she bad to climb down and crawl along with her feet under the water to avoid an upright limb. Once she slipped and lost her hold, and was nearly sucked into the eddying current, but she caught at a stout projection aud swung herself up again. She could hear the swash of the heavy timbers up-stream as they rocked lazily upon the water, but she did not dare to look. Before her the main trunk of the tree was lost, and she saw two diverging limbs*, one low in the water, the other locked with the oak in mid-air. Which to take 7 She dared not hesitate, but began a perilous climb along the upper limb, slippery, naked in places, wavering bo that she grew giddy and shut her eyes to keep from falling. And so, lying prone upon it, hand over hand, she crept the entirejlengtb, and the great stick of timber struck heavily against the fallen sycamore, and just as Kate swung herself into the branches of the oak she felt her support give way, and with a groan, and crash, and wild up-tossingi of its skeleton arms, the old tree tore loose from its moorings, and was swept down stream towards the bay. Her hands torn and bleeding, Kate Middleton reached solid ground at length, and first her maternal instinct asserted itself, and she looked back and saw her children standing still and looking after her. She pointed home with a gesture they dare not disobey ; she saw them turn and run up the lane, then sped along her way. She was not light of foot as ia her girlhood ; whereas she im once fleet as a deer, and swift motion was a very joy to her, she now realised that she was growing to be a stout and middle-aged women. She moved heavily and clumsily, and laboured for breath, and her feet were like clods baneath her. There was a mile of rough and rocky ground to be covered before she reached the Btation, and the train — oh, but to possess once more the agility of her girlhood ! Which would be first? Would the train, flying across the upper levels of the Coast Range, reach the next station before the brave woman had sent her message of warning 1 How maoy times she asked herself the question she could not have told. She scarcely dared hope that she might be in time. Hdr heart seemed ready to burst with grief for the terrible misery threatening so many happy homea. Alas I for the orphaned children who might cry aloud to heaven that night 1 Alas ! for fathers and mothers whom the morrow might behold bowed down with sorrow ! Alas 1 for husbands and wives — She was crossing the bed of one of the many abandoned channels of the impetuous mountain stream, a Took pathway, strewn with the spoils of by-gone fresbetp, where, even then, a shallow stream was rippling past, token of the torrent's surplus force. She faltered, smitten by a new and awtul thought. What if Tom — Tom who was not to come for two days more ; Tom who had started out in an altogether different direction — should have cutshorthis excursion, or with his party, driven home by the continued rains, somehow, wandered to one of the upper stations and boarded the train there. Where was her vaunted physical strength now? What was she, after all, but a weak, wretched woman, with trembling limbs, every muscle clogged by this great horror that had taken possession of her, a fierce pam gripping at her heart, something rising in her throat which suffocated her, her eyes filled with babyish tears 1 Thank God ! her brain kept clear and true to its purpose, and urged on the flagging body. On, on, over little hillocks, across level stretches of sand, down new ravines she ran. O ice she cut her foot cruelly on a sharp stone and remembered, for the first time that she had on the light worsted slippers she had worn in the house, and had carelessly neglected to txchaoge for walking boots when she started down to tha creek with her children. She even bethought herself that her loose house dress was scarcely the style of apparel in which she should like to present herself at the station, could she have her choice, and in the same bivath sent up a prayer of thankfulness for its light weight, which scaicely encumbered her movements. With all the rest of her senses dulled, her hearing appeared to have become preternaturally sharp. She seemed to hear the clatter of the approaching train twelve miles away. The throb, throb, throb of the engine kept pace with her beating heart. She heari the hollow echoes from the neighbouring hills as the train crept over embankments, its deafening clamour as it rushed Heroes trestle-work, its dull rumble as it rolled over 3olid ground. She even seemed to see the engineer as he laid his hand on tha escape-valve, ready to give the iron monster voice as it neared the little mountain town, then the wild shriek of the escaping steam, the clangour of the beil, the puff, puff, as the train slackened speed, the clatter of the brakes, the jangle of the couplings.

Would she never reach the little red station-house, now plainly in sight at the end of the smooth gravelled road ? She was passing the post-office, where people idly gazed at her. What matter I If on^y there were a horse and buggy in sight, to help her on her way I If only one of the loungers would understand and take up the mission which her spent strength seemed inadequate to fulfil I But she might not turn aside. Oo the depot platform more loungers, Jim among them, rolling a quid of tobacco in his cheek, and talking earnestly about the state of the weather and the prospects of the growing crops. They all looked npon her as » mad woman as she ran past them. Jim muttered an expletive under his breath, moved by the strong indignation that must always possess a telf-respecting servant when master or mistress does something < crogatory to the dignity of his " family."

The station-master was in his office talking with a gentleman who had come down from the mountains and was waiting to take the tram to the city. He was clad in a hnnting-suit, and was talking with some excitement.

" It has rained all the week," he was sayiDg ; " you think it rains here in the valley, but, gre&t guns 1 you should be up in the mountains in a rain-storm. Sheets and sheets of it — blizzards of sleet and hail, and the wind blowing like a hurricane. We broke camp yesterday. I took a bee-line down here. The rest crossed the hills to the station above. They'll be down on the four-o'clock.

Voice and speaker were familiar to the woman who stood in the doorway, both hands pressed to her panting breast. The words came only too distinctly to her quickened senses. Then her premonitions were true, and Tom — Tom was on that fatal train. Again her body reeled, but her steady brain saved her.

" Stop the train ! The bridge is gone !" she cried.

Both men looked up, startled at the words. With the prompt movement of a man trained to obey orders, the agent leaped to his instrument ; the other man, slower to comprehend, came forward, the look of amazement on his face, and he viewed the smgularapparition in the doorway, giving place to amu-ed indulgence, as he recognised the speaker. What an eccentric, impetuous girl Kate Mitchell always was, and what a life she must lead Tom Middleton I " This is quite an unexpected pleasure, Mrs. Middletoa," he said, smiling.

She waved him back with a single imperious gesture. There was a brief silence. The operator listened intently, with his head resting on his hand, Kate Middleton remained standing in the doorway, her hands clasped low, her face blanched with dread, and all her soul absorbed in listening. Jack Spencer slowly comprehending the meaning of the scene, waited, his interest growing with every moment's delay.

At last it came, the monotonous click, click, conveying its portentous message in a language unknown to two of the three listeners. The operator arose from his chair.

" Just in time. The train was pulling out of the station but they stopped her.

Kate Middleton clutched at the doorway. For the first time in her life her head gave way. She was again on the swaying sycamore, and the limb was cracking, breaking, going down. Sac felt the water on her face, and opened her eyes, to find Jack Spencer supporting her head, and the station agent pouring ice-cold water over her.

" She'll be all right in a minute," said Jack, cheerfully. " Now, Mrs. Middleton, with your permission, I'll see you home."

She borrowed a hat and cloak from the station agent's wife. Jim brought up the horses. Jack Spencer handed her into the waggon with grave courtesy, and they drove off. Some of the loungers, dimly understanding what she had done, looked on curiously. That was all. No fuss, no formal tributes, no speech-making even lrom the two who understood. There was no deputation of strong men to tender her public tribute in voices shaken by sobs. Contrary to all tradition, and unlike any hero or heroine who ever saved a train from wreck, she waa on the wrong side of the bridge, and the people most deeply concerned were nire miles away.

Neither honour nor praise awaited Kate in her own home. Bridget scolded her, and put her to bed, and declared that she " wud (surely catch her death a-cold, an' shs desarved it well," and tiied to save her from the consequences of her misdeeds at the same time. Of the children, Harry subbornly resented ber base desertion of them on the bank of the raging stream, and Marian, with her mother's spirit of adventure strong upon her, terrified the household by avowing her intention of going across the water on a tree the first time she could escape parental authority.

The mother had her reward, nevertheless. Late that night, when the children were asleep, and Bridget had relaxed guard, Kate escaped from bed, and. donning a wrapper and shawl, laid herself down upon the lounge betore the open fire, to enjoy scanning the daily paper. The rain fell steadily without, so steadily that the sound of a horse's hoofs coming up the sodden driveway was scarcely distinguishable from the patter ot the rain-drops. Kate started up as she htard a step outside tne door ; another moment, anJ Tom was before her, looking very solemn, like a newly-materialised ghost.

" Tom ? " she cried, sharply, and then she seemed to cower before him ; yet not before him, but the honor of the afternoon, which again descended upon her and took possession of her. Tom, her husband, might have been one of that grisly throng of mangled, crushed, dead, and dying phantoms of the might-have-been, ever torturing her mental vision. SLe pressed her bands over htr eyes, as if they might bar out the eight. '■' Ob, you ought not ; you never should do such a thing," she said. After all, she had nerves, and they had been sorely tried that day. " What do you mean ? " gravely demanded Tom. This waa indeed a sorry grteting, sf er nil he had been through.

'' You shouldn't have come home in this unexpected way ; you «ho«ld let people know when you are coming."

" Kate," said Tom, solemnly, seating himself on the sofa and drawing her down beside him, '• you will speak differently when you know how near I came to not coming home at all ; I have travelled

twelve miles over a rough mountain road to get here to-night. We were just starting out of Prescita when we were notified that the bridge — three miles below there — six miles above here, Kate — had been carried away.

" How did you find out ? " Kate was herself again. There was a little twinkle in her eyes, but her lip trembled. "As to ihat,,' replied Tom, reports are somewhat vague. Bat all accounts agree it was a woman. And she did wonderf al things. The bridge-tendei's wife, I believe. Floated down stream on a timber, somebody said. Started, all dripping, for the station, and got thai* in an unconscionably short time. Not a minute to spare. If it hadn't been for her ? — oh, it was a wondarful feat, everybody says."

" But how— very — unladylike I " said Kate in a shocked Toice, stoopiug o pick up something from the fiuor. " Unladylike 1 " criei Tom. excitcily. " I tell, you, Kate, that was something worth while. Very different from your lawn tennis practice. When a woman pats her strength to such a use— and suth a strain as it must have been, by Jove I Why, Kate, I doubt if yoa could co much as walk to town and back. But when a woman saves two or three hundred lives at one stroke My goodness, Kate I What have you been doing to yoar foot ? " For Mrs. Middleton had unconsciously pushed the wounded foot into sight, and its load of bandages piled up by Bridget's clumsy fingers, and finished with a red flannel swathing, was indeed calculated to stiike terror to the beholder.

" I— l took a little walk to-day," replied Kate, guiltily, trying to bide the foot again beneath the hem of her dress. " Bat don't let ai talk about that, lorn. I'm sorfy I seemed queer and cold when yoa came in. I wasn't feeling well, and you— you looked so. It made me shiver."

Like many people who are dauntless in the presence of real danger, Kate had all her life been Bhy of praise. If she could have kept the know'edge of her escapade, as she mentally termed it, fro«m ber husband, she would gladly have done it. But, stnpid as he was in some ways, obtuse as he was, he was not to be put off in this way. He was already on his knees beside her, cutting threads, removing pins, aud undoing cloths, in spite of her protests, until he disclose i a little foot, purple with bruises, and an ugly, gaping cut in one tide. "No wonder you are not yourself to-night. A ' little walk I ' I should say so. Kate, what have you been up to now T " •' I had on my slipper."," confessed the culprit, " and — there wasn't time to change them. Let it alone, Tom. It'll be all right to-morrow." "A ' little walk !' " persisted Tom. " Great Csesar, Kate, yon are not to be trusted alone any more than a two-year-old babe ; I'll never dare to go off and leave you again." " If I hadn't taken my little walk, you — yon— you mightn't hare had the chance I " cried poor Kate, cornered at last. "My soul 1 " cried Tom, a light dawning upon him at last ; "it was you." I think he kissed the little lame, bruised feet. lam afraid he did a great many foolish things and humbled himself most lamentably to show his love for his brave young wife, his pride in her, and his contrition.

There was a purse made up by the passengers on the overland train that fateful day. to reward the plucky woman who had saved them from such a frightful disaster, but they were never able to find her out. The station-master and Jack Spencer kept their seoret welL The only subscription that ever reached its destination was Tom Middleton's. His wife sometimes wears a very ugly bracelet set with a couple of very large and ponderous gold coins. When people question her about it she replies that it ib a medal Tom once awarded her for a race she won. It is generally understood that she refers to some rowing match or horseback ride, for there are boats on ths Dond now, saddle-horses in Tom's stable, and a tennifcourt on the lawn. But even as she answers Kate sees again the railroad train, with its precious living freight, thunderi ig on to destruction, and a woman, bare-headed, wild-eyed, with draggled dress and bleeding feet, racing desperately across a rough country, in a mad effort to avert the impending danger. — Argonaut.

A correspondent writes as follows to a home paper : — Recent events have caused some of our English friends to look with feeling! approaching to dmmay on Irish Catholics and on their loyalty to the Church. What evidence does the " Society for the Propagation of the Faith " give ua on this head ? The M<y report of the annals of the above society has just come into my hands, containing the contributions from each diocesa in England, Ireland, and Scotland, to the funds of the association. I have taken the trouble to add np the contributions from each country separately (the secretary of the association has kindly and considerately collected them under one total). The figures are suggestive. Ireland contributes (in franco), 164,304 ; England, 47,069. The amount contributed from the dioceee (Cashel and Emly 1 ) of that enfant terrible-ST. Croke— 76,633, far exceeds the entire collection from England. Verb. tap. A St. Petersbnrgh newspaper gives some interesting particulars about the increased study of Russian abroad. It seems that the ' sweet-flowing Russ ' is most diligently studied in Germany ; and it is now being learned by a large number of people in England likewise. At the Berlin Military Academy Russian is obligatory, and it is spoken a good deal in military circles all over the Fatheiland. There is in Germany a considerable demaad for Russian-speaking journalists, since all the principal newspapers keep a careful eye npoa Russian affaire, and in the somewhat elementary arrangement of molt German newspaper offices this can only be done by the presence on the staff of a contributor who knows the language. In commercial circles a knowledge of Russian is likewise found very useful, and many young business-men go to St. Petersburg for a time to perfect themselves in the language. In the English army, as we know, special inducements are held out to officers to learn Russian ; and, according to the 8.. Petersburg journal, many of our young officers are so eager to learn the Muscovite tongue that when they happen to be stationed in a town where no instructor is to be had they spell out the Russian Bible by the aid of an English one. Let us hope this is true,— 9t. •Tames'i Gazette,