CHAPTER XLIX
ECHOES OF A PAST STORM
Miss Hargrove returned to dine with them, and as they were lingering over
the dessert and coffee Webb remarked, "By the way, I think the poet
Willis has given an account of a similar, or even greater, deluge in this
region." He soon returned from the library, and read the following
extracts: "'I do not see in the Tribune or other daily papers any mention
of an event which occupies a whole column on the outside page of the
highest mountain above West Point. An avalanche of earth and stone, which
has seamed from summit to base the tall bluff that abuts upon the Hudson,
forming a column of news visible for twenty miles, has reported a deluge
we have had--a report a mile long, and much broader than Broadway.'"
"Certainly," said Mr. Clifford, "that's the flood of which I spoke
yesterday. It was very local, but was much worse than the one we have
just had. It occurred in August of '53. I remember now that Mr. Willis
wrote a good deal about the affair in his letters from Idlewild. What
else does he say?"
Webb, selecting here and there, continued to read: "'We have had a deluge
in the valley immediately around us--a deluge which is shown by the
overthrown farm buildings, the mills, dams, and bridges swept away, the
well-built roads cut into chasms, the destruction of horses and cattle,
and the imminent peril to life. It occurred on the evening of August 1,
and a walk to-day down the valley which forms the thoroughfare to
Cornwall Landing (or, rather, a scramble over its gulfs in the road, its
upset barns and sheds, its broken vehicles, drift lumber, rocks, and
rubbish) would impress a stranger like a walk after the deluge of Noah.
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