Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/150

 element; while the boats employed to take from their windows the sick, or the softer sex, encountered continual obstacles from trees partly immersed, and fences planted like chevaux de frise, beneath the treacherous waters.

Occasionally, a bridge from some neighbouring town has been borne along, a reluctant visiter: in one instance a structure of this sort glided by, displaying in unbroken majesty a toll-gate, upon whose topmost bar, a red-wing'd cockerel was perched. Having evinced his fidelity to his favourite roost, by adhering to it during all the shocks of its midnight disruption, morn beheld the undaunted bird, clapping his wings as he passed the town, and sending forth shrill notes of triumph, from excitement at his extraordinary voyage of discovery.

Once, an infant, in his cradle-ark, suddenly washed from the cabin of his slumbering parents, glided over the bosom of the pitiless surge. He was rescued—not by the daughter of Pharoah, and her maidens, but by the father urging on his light boat with eager strokes, while the mother, not standing "among the flags by the river's brink," but wading unconsciously into the cold, slippery channel, received with extended arms, the babe smiling as he awoke.

But the Spring, which we describe, had witnessed no uncommon accident. On the contrary, the breaking up of the frosts of Winter had been peculiarly favourable. The course of Madam L, being directed toward the west, led her gradually from the vicinity of the larger