Just as we started, this despatch
from Skowhegan was brought me,--the last word I got from
them:--
Stop for nothing. There is a jam below us in the
stream, and we fear back-water.
ORCUTT.
Of course we could not go faster than we could. We
missed no connection. At Skowhegan, Haliburton and I
took a cutter, leaving the ladies and children to follow
at once in larger sleighs. We drove all night, changed
horses at Prospect, and kept on all the next day. At No.
7 we had to wait over night. We started early in the
morning, and came down the Spoonwood Hill at four in the
afternoon, in full sight of our little village.
It was quiet as the grave! Not a smoke, not a man,
not an adze-blow, nor the tick of a trowel. Only the
gigantic fly-wheels were whirling as I saw them last.
There was the lower Coliseum-like centring, somewhat
as I first saw it.
But where was the Brick Dome of the MOON?
"Good Heavens! has it fallen on them all?" cried I.
Haliburton lashed the beast till he fairly ran down
that steep hill. We turned a little point, and came out
in front of the centring. There was no MOON there! An
empty amphitheatre, with not a brick nor a splinter
within!
We were speechless. We left the cutter. We ran up
the stairways to the terrace. We ran by the familiar
paths into the centring. We came out upon the ways,
which we had never seen before.
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