Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-06-09
THE NYMPH OF THE EDDY.

shore near Pontiac When the river was
high it had all the temper of a maelstrom,
but in the hot summer when the logs had
ceased to run, and the river wallowed idly
away to the rapids, it was like a molten
mirror which, with the regularity of pulse,
resolved itself into a funnel, as though
somewhere beneath there was a blowhole.
1t had look of hunger. Even the chill
dren noticed that, and they fed it with
many things. What it passed into its
rumbling bowels you never saw again.
You threw a stick upon the shivering sur
face, and you saw it travel, first slowly, then
very swiftly, round and round the sides,
till the throat of the eddy seemed to open
suddenly, and it ran straight down into
darkness, and presently the funnel filled
up again. 1t was Swallowed by huge
cedar tree. If you came suddenly into the
thicket above it, you were stilled with won
der. The place was different from all 9th
ers on the river. 1t looked damp, it was
so strangely green; the grass and trees
showed so juicy; you fancied you could
slice the fallen logs through with pen
knife. Every sound there carried with a
peculiar distinctness yet the air was almost
painfully STILL Through the stiffness there
ran ever sound, metallic, monotOnous,
pl6dSduI-d Cltdu
1t never varied, was the river high or low.
If you lay down in the messy grass you
were lulled by that sing-song vibration,
behind which you heard the low sucking
breath of the eddy. The two sounds be-
longed to each other, and had a peculiar
sympathy of tone The birds never sang
in the place, not because it was gloomy,
maybe, but as though not to break in upon
other rights.
There was nothing mysterious about that
unceasing cling-clung, it was merely the
ram of force-pump. If you followed the
pipe that led from the ram up the hill, you
came to a large white house.
Many summer day, and especially of a
morning. young girl came dancing down
to the eddy, to sit beside it. She and it
were very good friends; she used to tell it
all her secrets, and she made up a little
song about it--a simple, almost foolish
little song such as clever young girl can
write-Laure had been to the convent in
Montreal, so she was not common village
maid.
"Green, so green is the cedar tree,
And green is the moss that's under;
Can you hear the things that he says to meg
Do you like themg y Eddy, wonder"
1t was very foolish. But she had such a
soft, thrilling voice that you would have
thought it beautiful. She was young
about sixteen-and her hair was so light
that it fell about her like spray. But sud
denly she ceased to be quite happy.
Armand, the avOcat's clerk, was a Pro-
testant, and she had been meeting him at
the eddy secretly. What did she care about
the catechism, or the cure, or an unblessed
marriage, if Armand blessed her? She was
Of of o1,a 10 l.;
while she was certain of him. But the
cure discovered sOmething-she ceased to
go to confession, and, though he was kind
man, he had his duty to do.
There was trouble, and the ways of
Laure's people were devious and hard. 1t
was said that she must go to the convent
again, and they Ike her prisoner in the
house. One day they brought her a letter
which, they said, was from Armand. 1t
told her that he was going away, and that
he had given her up. She had never seen
his writing-they had trusted nothing to
the village post Office-and she believed
the letter was from him. She had wept so
much that tears were all done; her eyes
only ached now. At first she thought that
she would get away and go to him, and beg
him not to give her up-what does a child
know of pride all at once? But the pride
came to her little later, and she tried to
think what she must do. While her
thoughts went waving to and fro and she
could make nothing of them, she heard all
the time the long, signing breath of the
eddy and the cling-clung of the force-pump.
She never slept, AMI after time it grew
in her mind that she never would sleep till
she went down to the cedar tree and the
eddy; they seemed always calling her. She
had said her Ave Maras over and over
again, but they seemed to do her no good.
Nothing could quiet her, not even the
music of the twelfth mass, played on the
little reed organ by the organist of st.
Saviors, when they took her to church
against her villa passiyerebel. The next
day she was to go to the convent again.
That night she stole from the house into
the light of the soft harvest moon, and ran
down through the garden, over the road,
and into the cedar thicket She did not
hear behind her the footsteps of a man
who, night after night, had watched the
house, hoping that she would come out.
She fastened to the cedar tree, and looked
down into the eddy. From far up the river
there came the plaintive cry of loon; but
she heard no other sound in the night, save
this and the cling-clung of the ram mufiled
by fallen branches, and the loud-Dreathlng
eddy which invited until an arm ran
round her waist and held her fast.
A minute later he said: "You will come,
then? And we shall be man and wife very
quick"
swat a minute" she said, and she pick
ed up handfuls of leaves and dropped them
softly into the funnel of water.
"What's that for?" he asked.
q foI,o oosI 4, l.,
old gayety. "Theres a girl drowned there.
Yes, but it's true. She was good Catho-
lie and unhappy. I'm hereto now, and
happy"
But she said her Ave Marias again just
the same; being happy, they did her more
good. And she says that the eddy is spite
full to her now. 1t had counted on diff
ferent end to her wOoing.-McC lure's Mag
dzine.
DURING the fishing season of 1892 the