We reached the mound, and found the cakes so piled, as to be able to ascend them; though not without an effort. After getting up a layer or two, the broken mass became so irregular and ragged, as to render it necessary for me to mount first, and then to drag Anneke up after me. This I did, until exhausted; and we both seated ourselves on the edge of a cake, in order to recover our breath. While there, it struck me, that new sounds arose from the river; and, bending forward to examine, I saw that the water had forced its way through the dam above and was coming down upon us in a torrent. [Footnote 26: This remark of Mr. Cornelius Littlepage's, may induce a smile in the reader. But, few persons of fifty can be found, who cannot recall the time, when it was a rare thing to imagine _anything_ American, as good as its English counterpart. The American who could write a book--a real, live book--forty years since, was a sort of prodigy. It was the same with him who could paint any picture beyond a common portrait. The very fruits and natural productions of the country were esteemed, doubtingly; and he was a bold man who dared to extol even canvass-back ducks, in the year 1800! At the present day, the feeling is fast undergoing an organic change. It is now the fashion to _extol_ everything American, and from submitting to a degree that was almost abject, to the feeling of colonial dependency, the country is filled, to-day, with the most profound provincial self-admiration. It is to be hoped that the next change will bring us to something like the truth.--EDITOR.] CHAPTER XVII. My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my Life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The child is father of the man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. WORDSWORTH. Five minutes longer on the ice of the main channel, and we should have been swept away. Even as we still sat looking at the frightful force of the swift current, as well as the dim light of that clouded night would permit, I saw Guert Ten Eyck's sleigh whirl past us; and, only a minute later, Herman Mordaunt's followed; the poor, exhausted beasts struggling in the harness for freedom, that they might swim for their lives. Anneke heard the snorting of those wretched horses; but her unpractised eyes did not detect them, immersed, as they were, in the current; nor had she recognised the sleigh that whirled past us, as her father's. A little later, a fearful shriek came from one of the fettered beasts; such a heart-piercing cry as it is known the horse often gives. I said nothing on the subject, knowing that love for her father was one of the great incentives which had aroused my companion to exertion; and being unwilling to excite fears that were now latent.