THE BUILDERS OF THE BRIDGE.
By Mrs. G. LINNÆUS BANKS, Author of “God’s Providence House,” “The Manchester Man,” “More than Coronets,” etc.
“But, Muse, return at last; attend the princely Trent,Who, straining on in state, the north’s imperious flood,The third of England called, with many a dainty woodBeing crowned, to Burton comes, to Needwood, where she showsHerself in all her pomp, and as from thence she flowsShe takes into her train rich Dove and Darwin[4]clear—Darwin, whose font and fall are both in Derbyshire,And of whose thirty floods that wait the Trent upon,Doth stand without compare, the very paragon.”
“But, Muse, return at last; attend the princely Trent,Who, straining on in state, the north’s imperious flood,The third of England called, with many a dainty woodBeing crowned, to Burton comes, to Needwood, where she showsHerself in all her pomp, and as from thence she flowsShe takes into her train rich Dove and Darwin[4]clear—Darwin, whose font and fall are both in Derbyshire,And of whose thirty floods that wait the Trent upon,Doth stand without compare, the very paragon.”
“But, Muse, return at last; attend the princely Trent,Who, straining on in state, the north’s imperious flood,The third of England called, with many a dainty woodBeing crowned, to Burton comes, to Needwood, where she showsHerself in all her pomp, and as from thence she flowsShe takes into her train rich Dove and Darwin[4]clear—Darwin, whose font and fall are both in Derbyshire,And of whose thirty floods that wait the Trent upon,Doth stand without compare, the very paragon.”
“But, Muse, return at last; attend the princely Trent,
Who, straining on in state, the north’s imperious flood,
The third of England called, with many a dainty wood
Being crowned, to Burton comes, to Needwood, where she shows
Herself in all her pomp, and as from thence she flows
She takes into her train rich Dove and Darwin[4]clear—
Darwin, whose font and fall are both in Derbyshire,
And of whose thirty floods that wait the Trent upon,
Doth stand without compare, the very paragon.”
So began England’s descriptive poet, Michael Drayton, to sing the praises of the glorious Trent in his “Polyolbion;” but Milton was more terse in his invocation—
“Rivers, arise! whether thou be the sonOf utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulfy Don,Or Trent, who, like some earth-born giant, spreadsHis thirty arms along the indented meads.”
“Rivers, arise! whether thou be the sonOf utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulfy Don,Or Trent, who, like some earth-born giant, spreadsHis thirty arms along the indented meads.”
“Rivers, arise! whether thou be the sonOf utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulfy Don,Or Trent, who, like some earth-born giant, spreadsHis thirty arms along the indented meads.”
“Rivers, arise! whether thou be the son
Of utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulfy Don,
Or Trent, who, like some earth-born giant, spreads
His thirty arms along the indented meads.”
Thus much the poets; but in plain prose be it told that the Trent needed no invocation to “arise.” It had, and has, a tendency to arise and flood the meadows in its course most disastrously, as it did no later than last May. The many arches of its bridges tell the tale.
But long before bridges were built or were common, there was need to cross the river, either by ford or ferry, and its treachery must have been known in very ancient days, since Swark—whoever he might be, and whether he found a natural ford or made an artificial one—set up on end an unwrought monolith above the height of a man as a guide for wayfarers to find the crossing-place when the waters happened to be “out”; since there the waste and meadow-land lay low for many a broad mile.
There was scarcely a speck in the blue vault of heaven when Earl Bellamont and his friends, leaving a cloud of dust behind them, crossed the shrunken, snake-like river that mirrored their gleaming armour in its broken, scale-like wavelets, as if it held their images and would fain clasp them. And so the sun had shone for weeks,
“All in a hot and copper sky,”
“All in a hot and copper sky,”
“All in a hot and copper sky,”
“All in a hot and copper sky,”
until the earth cried out for rain from its parched and cracking lips. Only near the red, marly banks of the river did the grass and herbage retain its vivid tint of green. As the days went by the air seemed to grow hotter; the cooks in the kitchen, piling fresh logs upon the fire, wished the guests gone and the wedding over. The falconer out on the moor in the glare with William Harpur and other squires, or the anglers by the streams, had scarcely the best of it, though Lady Bellamont wearied of her many cares, and censured the languor of her daughters and her maids.
Preparations had not ceased, they had only renewed; and there had been unwonted doles to the villagers of good things that would have spoiled.
At length, when even the weaving of tapestry or the twanging of the lute was a toil, there rose a cloud in the north-western sky. The cattle lowed, the leaves turned themselves over to welcome it, the hawks screamed in the mews. That was the morning of the 14th, when the very hush in the air was significant. The cloud spread, darkened, blackened, but in the distance.
“There is a storm somewhere over our northern hills!” exclaimed the prior, who had been up on the battlements. “The clouds hang black and low over Dovedale.”
“It seemeth such a day as heralded the great storm three years ago,” cried Lady Bellamont, in alarm. “And, ah! what a flash was that!”
The younger ladies gathered together in shrinking groups, as if the fears of the matron were infectious. Only Idonea kept at her word, and scorned to show timidity, whatever she might feel, as the mutterings of thunder rumbled over the hall.
It was high noon, but the sky was darkening overhead. The horn at the great gates was blown. A messenger in hot haste had come spurring from the ford and up the hill, glad to save himself a drenching, for the great drops were pattering on the leaves and leads like hail.
He had come at full speed from Oxford. King Henry had ratified the great charter of English liberty. His master, the earl, and his friends would be home ere nightfall. The bridal must be upon the morrow. He had, moreover, private messages and tokens for the ladies, Idonea and Avice, from their coming bridegrooms.
The messages were not for general ears; the love-tokens were a couple of golden crosses richly wrought and set with gems. Five rubies clustered in the centre of Sir Ralph’s gift to Idonea, five pearls in Sir Gilbert’s to Avice.
They were dainty trinkets, but Avice took hers shrinkingly. “They seem like crosses set with tears and drops of blood,” she whispered, with white lips, to Idonea, who started, and, if she said “Tut, tut! they are precious tokens,” was not altogether unaffected by her sister’s superstitious dread.
In answer to inquiries, the messenger replied that he “thought the Trent was rising. It was higher than when his lord had left Swarkstone.”
It had been still lower at sunrise that day.
Two hours later Friar John blew the horn at the gate. He and his mule were pitiably drenched.
The Dove was swollen when he crossed the bridge near Egginton, he said, though the downpour did not come until he had left it five miles behind.
“Now, heaven forfend there be not such a flood as swept Swark’s Stone away three summers back. The passage of the ford would be perilous to my lord now that is gone,” cried Lady Bellamont, wringing her hands, and it might seem with reason, for now the floodgates of the skies were loosed, and heaven’s artillery waged war with earth.
“Storms and travellers are in Almighty hands, good dame,” said Prior John, soberly. “Tell your beads devoutly, and trust your all to Him.”
Avice and Idonea, with other damsels and dames, were already on their knees in prayer, their hearts beating wildly.
William Harpur, pacing up and down, glanced through the dim glass windows on the scene without, and then from one to other of the shuddering women within.
“I think, Prior John,” he observed, with a slight curl of lip, “it will be a sorry welcome for my noble kinsman and his friends when they come in, wet and weary, if no board be spread, no dry garments ready for their use.”
The taunt seemed to sting the good dame.
“Storm or no storm, Will, my lord shall not find us unprepared. Maidens, attend me.” And she swept from the tapestried reception-room, followed by her daughters and the noble maids who did probationary service under her, and soon her silver whistle might be heard, as one or other did her bidding, and all below-stairs was speed and bustle—and covert fear.
The hours sped. The storm seemed to abate. The board was spread. The time for the evening meal came and went.
There were no arrivals. There were whisperings among hungry guests, for time was flying.
Squire Harpur paced the rush-strewn floor impatiently, biting his nails and cogitating.
The dark came down—the double dark of storm and evening. The great time-candle in its sheltering lanthorn burnt the quarters down, and the hours.
Villagers came scurrying to the hall in dismay. The meads were under water. Their fresh-cut hay was floating down the stream, with many a tree and bush from parts beyond in the west.
The lovely sisters had busked themselves afresh to receive their lovers; dark tresses and fair were coiled in golden nets, and on each bosom shone her token cross of gold.
But as the hours and minutes flew, dress was disregarded, their lips quivered with anxiety.
At length Avice whispered to her mother, “Had we not best set a cresset burning on the watch-tower, and send torch-bearers to light the passage of the ford?”
“I have already given orders, child; I feared to speak my alarm to you.”
But even torches will not keep alight in rain and hurricane. The men, headed by Will Harpur, returned to the hall drenched and discomfited.
“The blazing sky will be their surest guide,” said he; “we cannot keep a torch alight. But do not give way to bootless terror, good aunt, the storm will have kept our friends at Ashby, or, at least, have driven them back. They would never be so mad as to attempt the passage of the ford.” Then, aside to the prior he added, “The land is covered for more than half a mile, and in mid-stream the marly water runs like a torrent, bearing bushes, beams, and haycocks swiftly out of sight. They must have gone back.”
Almost as he spoke there was a rapid thud of hoofs heard advancing up the hill.
There was the strong black charger of Earl Bellamont, and close behind came the bay mare of Sir Gilbert.
They were both riderless!
A moment of speechless horror, then shrieks and wailing filled the air.
Mid the sobbing and lamentations of women, and the clamour of men, fresh torches were kindled, horn lanthorns lighted and affixed to poles. Then, with the prior and Will Harpur at their head, all the men about the place rushed forthwith ropes and shepherds’ crooks, and aught that might save a drowning man.
Alas! it was all too late.
Their bravest and best beloved were gone for aye.
Too rashly impatient, and trusting the leadership of impetuous Earl Bellamont, Sir Ralph and Sir Gilbert had disregarded the remonstrances of more cautious companions, and dashed across the waste of waters, so low at first as barely to cover their horses’ fetlocks.
Alas! some floating bush may have misledthe old man, for all at once they seemed to be carried down stream and disappear, as if they had missed the ford, or the current had been too strong for men weighted with armour.
Sir Ralph had mounted his foot page behind him, and the scion of another noble house was lost.
Their esquires, following behind, had been impotent to save, and only by turning sharply round and fighting with the rising waters did they manage to preserve their own lives.
Day by day as the thick waters subsided did the search continue along the devastated banks until the dark Derwent, rolling its great volume of water into the Trent, barred further passage, and made the quest hopeless.
A silken scarf caught in a bush, a broken lance and pennon, a battered casque, a saddle-bow, were all the relics found of father, bridegrooms, page.
Lady Bellamont was borne down by the shock. Avice drooped like a broken lily; only Idonea seemed capable of thought or action.
The subsidence of the flood brought spurring in the more prudent party to comfort their own wives and daughters, along with the downcast esquires to tell the needless tale.
There was no consoling Lady Bellamont. She seemed to take the triple loss to her own heart, and grieve for her daughters as much as for herself.
In vain the prior offered such consolation as his faith afforded. She sat like a stone, rigid and immovable; would take no sustenance whatever.
The tears shed over her by Idonea and Avice seemed to petrify as they fell rather than melt. Their affliction but intensified her own.
“If they had died in battle as brave men should, we might have borne it bravely,” she said, at last; “but to be slain by the cold, cruel, treacherous waters in the height of joy and hope, almost within hail of home, it is too terrible, too terrible, prior; I cannot be resigned. And for my crushed roses—orphaned, widowed, ere they became wives—it is too much; I cannot survive it.”
And before that month was out the twin-sisters were left to weep out their tears in each other’s arms, and bear the fresh blow as best they might, with only the good prior to watch and guard them in their orphanhood, and lead them to bow meekly to the inscrutable decrees of heaven.
There was William Harpur willing to do the co-heiresses suit and service, and leave his own estate, a mile or so away, to the care of his reeve, whilst he administered affairs at the hall, but neither the prior nor the sisters cared for his interference, and when the old retainers, with the seneschal at their head, came in a body at the prior’s summons to swear fealty to the ladies Bellamont, and Idonea accepted their homage for herself and her sweet sister, as one born to command, he turned away to bite his nails in displeasure, and quitted the hall before the sun went down.
But though Idonea could order the household, and the seneschal could keep the retainers in order, and the reeve overlook the villeins and lands, nothing seemed to rouse the drooping Avice, or remove the more rebellious sorrow that mutely burned on the cheeks and in the eyes of Idonea.
“My daughters,” said the prior, on the eve of his departure, “duty calls me away to my own flock. The bridge I built over the Dove three years agone, after the great hurricane, has, Friar Paul brings word, been shaken sorely. I must needs see to its repair. The safety of many lives depends on its stability. Yet I would fain see you more submissive to the divine will ere I depart. Think how many sufferers there have been by the same calamity—how many a hearth has been laid bare, how many cry aloud for sustenance the flood has swept away. Abandon not your hours to selfish lamentations, but go abroad, see how the poor hinds bear their sorrows, and endeavour, by good and charitable deeds, to win the favour of your offended Lord. Look on the crosses that ye wear, and think of His wounds and His tears, and remember that His blood and His tears were shed for others, not for self.”
Idonea’s eyes were fixed on him when he began; they drooped as low as those of Avice ere he ended.
“Father,” said she, “your rebuke is just. We have thought the world was our own—in joy and in sorrow. It shall not be so henceforth. We ask your blessing ere you go.”
The benediction was spoken, and on the morrow he was gone.
They, too, went forth in their mourning-weeds, and saw what sorrow meant for the very poor and for the class above them. Tottering huts, bare fields, where the only crop was dull red mud; mothers in rags weeping over naked and famishing babes; churls looking hopeless on desolation, or seeking wearily to repair a fence or clear a garden. And wherever they went they left hope behind, as well as coin, or food, or raiment from the hall. But some took their gifts and sympathy with sullen thanklessness. They were little better than serfs, and were more inclined to resent the ability to bestow than feel grateful to the willing bestowers.
Seneschal and reeve said they would spoil the peasantry with their frequent alms; and even the prior when he came suggested moderation in doles, which destroyed honest independence and fostered beggary.
But the sisters had found ease in helping others, and ere long sought the prior’s advice over a project to serve the people for generations yet unborn.
They had discovered that sorrow and calamity come to the poor as to the rich, and they proposed to preserve others from losses and heartaches such as theirs.
There was a general lamentation that Swark’s Stone was gone and the ford less readily found.
“Sister,” said Idonea, “had there been a bridge over the Trent like the Monks’ Bridge over the Dove, we had been happy wives, not mourning maidens. Let us up and build one. If we cannot restore our dead, we may preserve life for the living.”
“Right gladly,” assented Avice. “We may so make our sorrow a joy to thousands.”
The prior hailed their project as a divine inspiration, hardly conscious he had struck the keynote. They were rich. They would hear nought of suitors. What better could they do with their wealth?
He drew plans, he found them masons. Stone was not far to seek for quarrying; but, to be of service, the bridge must cover broad lands as well as common current.
“Twenty-nine arches!” cried William Harpur. “The cost will be enormous. It will swallow up your whole possessions! You must be mad; and the prior is worse to sanction such a sacrifice.”
“The sacrifice was made when the river robbed us of our dearest treasures. We must save others a like sacrifice at any cost,” said Avice, now as bold as her sister.
The work began and went on steadily. Honest labour was paid for, and churls, who had lived half on doles and housed like dogs, were paid a penny[5]a day or a peck of meal, and took heart to work with a will. There were always loose stones and wood about, and no one said nay when they began to repair and improve their own dwellings. And so industry came to Swarkstone with the building of the bridge. Heaven, too, seemed to smile upon the undertaking, for never a disaster occurred to mar it.
But, as Squire Harpur had prophesied, the cost was enormous. It was the work of years. Woods were cut down to supply timber for scaffolding; then lands were mortgaged or sold, and who but William Harpur was chief buyer? But still the work proceeded.
“Travellers who can cross the river dry-shod will gladly pay a small toll for the privilege,” said the sisters, as the last of their possessions, the old hall, passed into their cousin’s hands, and they took refuge in a small house in a bye-way, which goes by the name of “No Man’s-Lane” to this day.
It was a glad day for travellers on horse or foot when Swarkstone Bridge, of twenty-nine arches, was declared free for traffic, a bridge which spanned the Trent and its low meads for three-quarters of a mile, and the good Ladies Bellamont, who built it, had a right to expect those who could thus travel safely and dry-shod at all seasons to be grateful for the inestimable boon.
They had no charter to exact a toll to repay the moneys they had expended; but there was at the Swarkstone end a small chapel erected and dedicated to St. James, in which it was fondly hoped the users of the bridge would pause to thank God and drop their small thank-offerings in a box set there to receive them.
At first, when they began to build, people about called the sisters “the twin angels;” but by the time the bridge was built it had ceased to be a new thing. It was used as a matter of course; but the thank-offerings grew fewer and fewer as people ceased to remember the danger and discomfort of the passage by the ford.
They had impoverished themselves for the security of strangers. The offerings of gratitude would not keep life in the good sisters. They began to spin flax for a livelihood. Avice bore her lot meekly. Not so Idonea, into whose soul the sense of ingratitude was eating like a canker. But Avice said gently, “If we gave our wealth to build a bridge expecting a return, what answer can we make to our Lord when we go to Him? Let us be content that our individual losses will be the gain of thousands after us.” And that put an end to Idonea’s rebellion.
At length the aged prior, who had built Monks’ Bridge between the counties of Stafford and Derby for a people as ungrateful, stirred up William Harpur to remember the poor kinswomen on whose lands he was flourishing, and he offered them a home at Ticknall.
The offer came too late to save them. The Ladies Bellamont died as they had lived, together, and were buried with their two symbolic crosses on their breasts. And then, thanks chiefly to the prior, who reverenced them, a marble monument could be erected to their memories with their sleeping effigies upon it. It was inscribed “The Builders of the Bridge.” But the prior would fain have added, “They built unseen another bridge over the troubled waters of life—a bridge from earth to heaven.”
THE END.