'Now we know the worst,' said Rhoda, 'we can go to bed. I'll lay on the
kitchen sofa. His light's burnin' still.'
'And _she_?'
'Dirty old cat! You ought to 'ear 'er snore!'
At ten o'clock in the morning, after a maddening hour in his own garden
on the edge of the retreating brook, Midmore went off to confront more
damage at Sidney's. The first thing that met him was the pig, snowy
white, for the water had washed him out of his new sty, calling on high
heaven for breakfast. The front door had been forced open, and the flood
had registered its own height in a brown dado on the walls. Midmore
chased the pig out and called up the stairs.
'I be abed o' course. Which step 'as she rose to?' Sidney cried from
above. 'The fourth? Then it's beat all records. Come up.'
'Are you ill?' Midmore asked as he entered the room. The red eyelids
blinked cheerfully. Mr. Sidney, beneath a sumptuous patch-work quilt,
was smoking.
'Nah! I'm only thankin' God I ain't my own landlord. Take that cheer.
What's she done?'
'It hasn't gone down enough for me to make sure.'
'Them floodgates o' yourn'll be middlin' far down the brook by now; an'
your rose-garden have gone after 'em. I saved my chickens, though. You'd
better get Mus' Sperrit to take the law o' Lotten an' 'is fish-pond.'
'No, thanks. I've trouble enough without that.'
'Hev ye?' Mr. Sidney grinned. 'How did ye make out with those two women
o' mine last night? I lay they fought.'
'You infernal old scoundrel!' Midmore laughed.
'I be--an' then again I bain't,' was the placid answer. 'But, Rhoda,
_she_ wouldn't ha' left me last night. Fire or flood, she wouldn't.'
'Why didn't you ever marry her?' Midmore asked.
'Waste of good money. She was willin' without.'
There was a step on the gritty mud below, and a voice humming. Midmore
rose quickly saying: 'Well, I suppose you're all right now.'
'I be. I ain't a landlord, nor I ain't young--nor anxious. Oh, Mus'
Midmore! Would it make any odds about her thirty pounds comin' regular
if I married her? Charlie said maybe 'twould.'
'Did he?' Midmore turned at the door. 'And what did Jimmy say about it?'
'Jimmy?' Mr. Sidney chuckled as the joke took him. 'Oh, _he's_ none o'
mine. He's Charlie's look-out.'
Midmore slammed the door and ran downstairs.
'Well, this is a--sweet--mess,' said Miss Sperrit in shortest skirts and
heaviest riding-boots. 'I had to come down and have a look at it. "The
old mayor climbed the belfry tower." 'Been up all night nursing
your family?'
'Nearly that! Isn't it cheerful?' He pointed through the door to the
stairs with small twig-drift on the last three treads.
'It's a record, though,' said she, and hummed to herself:
'That flood strewed wrecks upon the grass,
That ebb swept out the flocks to sea.'
'You're always singing that, aren't you?' Midmore said suddenly as she
passed into the parlour where slimy chairs had been stranded at
all angles.
'Am I? Now I come to think of it I believe I do. They say I always hum
when I ride. Have you noticed it?'
'Of course I have. I notice every--'
'Oh,' she went on hurriedly. 'We had it for the village cantata last
winter--"The Brides of Enderby."'
'No! "High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire."' For some reason Midmore
spoke sharply.
'Just like that.' She pointed to the befouled walls. 'I say.... Let's
get this furniture a little straight.... You know it too?'
'Every word, since you sang it of course.'
'When?'
'The first night I ever came down. You rode past the drawing-room window
in the dark singing it--"And sweeter woman--"'
'I thought the house was empty then. Your aunt always let us use that
short cut. Ha-hadn't we better get this out into the passage? It'll all
have to come out anyhow. You take the other side.' They began to lift a
heavyish table. Their words came jerkily between gasps and their faces
were as white as--a newly washed and very hungry pig.
'Look out!' Midmore shouted. His legs were whirled from under him, as
the table, grunting madly, careened and knocked the girl out of sight.
The wild boar of Asia could not have cut down a couple more
scientifically, but this little pig lacked his ancestor's nerve and fled
shrieking over their bodies.
'Are you hurt, darling?' was Midmore's first word, and 'No--I'm only
winded--dear,' was Miss Sperrit's, as he lifted her out of her corner,
her hat over one eye and her right cheek a smear of mud.
They fed him a little later on some chicken-feed that they found in
Sidney's quiet barn, a pail of buttermilk out of the dairy, and a
quantity of onions from a shelf in the back-kitchen.
'Seed-onions, most likely,' said Connie. 'You'll hear about this.'
'What does it matter? They ought to have been gilded. We must buy him.'
'And keep him as long as he lives,' she agreed. 'But I think I ought to
go home now. You see, when I came out I didn't expect ... Did you?'
'No! Yes.... It had to come.... But if any one had told me an hour
ago!... Sidney's unspeakable parlour--and the mud on the carpet.'
'Oh, I say! Is my cheek clean now?'
'Not quite. Lend me your hanky again a minute, darling.... What a purler
you came!'
'You can't talk. 'Remember when your chin hit that table and you said
"blast"! I was just going to laugh.'
'You didn't laugh when I picked you up. You were going "oo-oo-oo" like a
little owl.'
'My dear child--'
'Say that again!'
'My dear child. (Do you really like it? I keep it for my best friends.)
My _dee-ar_ child, I thought I was going to be sick there and then. He
knocked every ounce of wind out of me--the angel! But I must really go.'
They set off together, very careful not to join hands or take arms.
'Not across the fields,' said Midmore at the stile. 'Come round by--by
your own place.'
She flushed indignantly.
'It will be yours in a little time,' he went on, shaken with his own
audacity.
'Not so much of your little times, if you please!' She shied like a colt
across the road; then instantly, like a colt, her eyes lit with new
curiosity as she came in sight of the drive-gates.
'And not quite so much of your airs and graces, Madam,' Midmore
returned, 'or I won't let you use our drive as a short cut any more.'
'Oh, I'll be good. I'll be good.' Her voice changed suddenly. 'I swear
I'll try to be good, dear. I'm not much of a thing at the best. What
made _you_....'
'I'm worse--worse! Miles and oceans worse. But what does it matter now?'
They halted beside the gate-pillars.
'I see!' she said, looking up the sodden carriage sweep to the front
door porch where Rhoda was slapping a wet mat to and fro. '_I_ see....
Now, I really must go home. No! Don't you come. I must speak to Mother
first all by myself.'
He watched her up the hill till she was out of sight.