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Show ROCKY RIVER BRIDGE. In the year '61 I was superintendent of the Howrich and Rock River Railroad. The daily trains were every hour, but after nine in the evening there was only one train until the steamboat accommodation at half-past three in the morning. This intervening train was the Belport mail. It was made up at Belport, and ran as far as Clinton, express all the way. Belport was a large city and it was there that my office was located, for the business of the road was all settled and arranged at that end of the line. The 12:30 train, or the midnight mail as it was more frequently designated, was run by Earl Rogers, a young man of seven or eight and twenty, who had been employed on the road for some years. Earl, taken all in all, was one of the finest fellows I ever saw. Frank, handsome, generous to a fault, and very well educated. For sometime he had been desperately in love with Laura Demain, the daughter of a rich old fellow just on the other side of the Rocky River, a half dozen miles beyond Belport. This love was fully returned, for Laura was a noble-hearted girl, and did not care for wealth or ambition when weighed in the balance with love, but old Demain and she were two, and there was no probability of his ever giving his consent. He had his heart set on her marrying Prince Carleton, a young blood of the vicinity, reputed wealthy, and of an old family. Demain's opposition naturally made the lovers more determined, and they only waited an increase of Earl's salary to be married in spite of Papa Demain. Earl was a faithful fellow, and I was doing my best with the company to get an advance for him, with every probability of success. One dark, rainy night in November, just after the nine o'clock train had been got off, and I was sitting in the office trying to balance an account that would not balance, the door opened and Earl Rogers walked in. He had on his water-proof suit, the hood up over his head, and the collar buttoned up closely, but I saw that his face was very pale and his eyes gleamed with an unnatural fire. "What in the world has happened, Rogers'" said I. "You look as glum as if you were going to your own funeral." "Mr. Woodbury," said he, earnestly, "do you believe in presentiments?" "No," said I. "I certainly do not! They are all old women's whims." "Perhaps so. I wish I could think so." Said he, sadly. "I have been trying to." "What is it, Earl? Anything gone wrong with Laura?" for I did not know but the little jade had been playing on with him after the manner of women. "No. You will laugh at me Mr. Woodbury, but I must tell somebody, or I shall go out of my wits." Said he, half laughing, "and before Heaven I tell you it is all truth. Thursday afternoon I took a hand-car and went over to Rocky River Bridge. I do not mind confessing that I went on purpose to get a glimpse of her home - perhaps of herself. I stood at one end of the bridge, enraptured at the sight of a red shawl which I knew was hers flitting in and out through the frost-bitten shrubbery of the garden." "And while I was looking at her I heard footsteps and looking up I saw myself coming from the opposite side of the bridge! I was dressed in this suit of waterproof; and my face was as pale as death, and my wide-open eyes were blank and expressionless! Sir, you think I am dazed, but I am only telling the truth! While I stood staring at the vision it disappeared; and weak and trembling, I came back to town. By the next day - yesterday, I had reasoned myself out of the belief of anything of the kind. It was an hallucination, I said, and to prove it so, I would go out there again and see if it would appear for the second time. I went again yesterday, and sir, the same thing was repeated; it will come once more - and then I shall go to my death!" "Nonsense!" said I, "come Earl, be honest and confess that you had been taking too much whiskey!" "I never drink anything, as you know, Mr. Woodbury," returned he, "and this thing was fearfully real. And of one result I am satisfied. If I run the mail-train out tonight, I shall be killed, and Heaven knows that will be the fate of the train! I suppose it could not be taken off for tonight?" "Taken off! What in the deuce do you mean?" snapped I - "this road runs trains as advertised, cowardly engineers to the contrary notwithstanding." He looked at me sadly, reproachfully and I could have kicked myself for the way I had spoken to him. "It was not on my own account, sir," said he; "but it is only a few days before Thanksgiving, and the train will be a full one. If there is an accident it may be a bad one." "Accident!" said I contemptuously, "Fiddlesticks! Come in tomorrow and let me laugh at you." He bade me good night gravely, and went out. Presently the clock struck twelve and I heard the three sharp, successive whistles that told me the train was nearly ready. A strange feeling of apprehension seized me. What if anything should happen? Yielding to an impulse which would not be controlled, I threw on my overcoat, turned out the gas, locked the office and hurried over to the depot just in season to catch the rail of the rear car and swing myself on board. Earl Rogers stood at his post, pale and silent, wet, alert and watchful. By the headlight in the locomotive he could see the track for a half-mile ahead, and his keen eye scanned every inch of the way as the train swept on. Past Romaine station, past the Mill Cut, past Hill's Embankment; and then plunged into the belt of woods which skirted Rocky River. Suddenly as they swept around a curve Earl's cheek whitened and he drew his breath in quick and hard! What he saw just before the train warned him that only death and destruction lay ahead. He could, probably, save himself by leaping off, but that would doom all on board! Not a second did he hesitate. The sharp whistle to down brakes sounded - he reversed steam and did everything in his power to stop the train. When he saw that his efforts were in vain, that the obstacle which lay across the track only a few rods in advance could not be avoided, he sprang over the wood box and unhooked from the carriages. The engine, released from the drag, shot ahead, and the next instant plunged forward into the gulf! There was a crash - a succession of shrill whistles from the escaping steam, and all was still! Not one of the cars went down - the first one halted on the very brink of the abyss, as if the more fearfully to impress on the minds of the passengers the terrible danger they had escaped. Before the train came to a stop I had jumped out, and was flying forward looking for Earl Rogers. They pointed into the river in answer to my inquiries, and seizing a lantern from the hands of one of the brakemen, I climbed down the bank and found him. He lay under the wreck of the locomotive - pale and bloody, with no breath coming from his icy lips. The two stokers were a little way off - stone dead. I am an old man, but I did not feel the weight of this poor but as I carried him up the bank, and on into the house of Demain, which happened to be the nearest residence. Of course, old Demain could not refuse him admittance under the circumstances, and in five minutes Laura was with me trying to restore the lifeless man to consciousness. She was all courage and hope: but for her we should have given him up for dead, and I to this day firmly believe that her presence and her care brought him back from death. She never flinched when the surgeon amputated his leg at the knee - it was the only way to save him. Dr. (Doctor) Green said - and Laura held the poor head to her bosom and his hands in hers through the whole operation. The accident, it was found, had been occasioned by a stick of timber pinned across the track, and the railroad company offered a reward of a thousand dollars for the discovery of the rascally perpetrator. No matter how we found out, but it was ascertained beyond a doubt that Prince Carleton was the guilty party. He confessed it when we had him snug and safe, and said that because he wanted Earl Rogers out of the way, and because he hated the whole concern (meaning the road and corporation) he had formed this plan of diabolical revenge. His father was a millionaire, and bought up our silence handsomely. Prince went to California, and I do not know what became of him. Old Demain proved himself a trump, after all, and gave in gracefully. He is dead now, and Earl and Laura live at the old place, as happy a couple as ever I saw. As for Earl's warning, you may believe what you like about |