THE CUT EMBANKMENT
Drownlands had been for some time in the upstairs room that served as
his office. He had brought out his account-books, lighted his lamp, and
was endeavouring to engage his thoughts on his expenditure in wages,
and to go over the names of his workmen, and strike out such as had
taken part in the recent riot. But it was in vain. After a few futile
attempts, he leaned his head on his palm, and gave himself over to
thoughts of Zita.
It was poor comfort to him to know that she would remain in his house,
but it was a comfort. He felt confidence in her—that, having passed
her word to remain, remain she would, whatever might happen. Whatever
animadversions might be made on her presence in his house, however
deeply her reputation might suffer, she would stay with him. She had
passed her word. It was not unlikely, he thought, that some swain might
become enamoured of her, and ask her to join her lot with his, but she
would refuse him. She would remain an old maid at Prickwillow, because
she had passed her word. Not for a moment did Drownlands' faith in Zita
give way. She had impressed the man indelibly with a conviction of her
sincerity. Zita as a Cheap Jack was one thing, Zita in private life
was another. She had one conscience for her dealings with the general
public, another conscience for her dealings with individuals face to
face. The sun might rise in the west and go down in the Orient sky, but
Zita could not fail to keep her word.
Drownlands was startled from his reverie by the maid Sarah, who rushed
in at the door, exclaiming—
'Master, the water be out!'
'What water?'
'The boy says the fen is flooded.'
'Flooded?'
'He says the bank be broke.'
'The Lark embankment?'
Drownlands realised instantly the significance of the announcement.
'Quick!' said he; 'light me the lantern. Sharp! No time is to be lost.'
He ran to the corner to snatch up a stick, and, without observing what
he did, laid hold of the flail. He did not perceive his mistake till
he had reached the foot of the staircase. Then he could not delay to
return and exchange it for a staff. He caught the lantern from the
hand of Sarah and went out into the yard. His feet at once splashed
into water.
'What has happened?' he exclaimed, with an oath. 'It cannot be that
they have cut the embankment.'
He splashed on. Over the frozen surface of the soil a ripple of water
was running, followed by another ripple, and with each the film of
water covering the yard was sensibly deepened.
'The bank must have broken. The frost has done it. They would never
have dared to cut it.'
Swaying his lantern, Drownlands strode through the water, out of the
stackyard and into the drove that led from his farm to the highway.
This had been much cut up that day by his waggons carting roots. The
heavy vehicles with broad wheels had crushed through the icy crust, and
the hoofs of the horses had assisted in breaking up the frost case.
Thus in places the water was able to act on the unfrozen peat, and
undermine the surface that was hard frozen. The peat was dry, and when
the water reached it, it swelled as a sponge.
A tide was flowing down the drove. On both sides were the frozen dykes;
the water covered the ice, running along it, and but for the sedge and
rushes that rose out of the ditches, their presence would have been
undefined.
The brow of Drownlands darkened, and his cheeks glowed. Was this the
meaning of the threats launched against him? He had never conceived it
possible that the men would have recourse to such means as this to pay
off their grudge against him, for to inundate the farm was to destroy
their field of labour.
'I wish I had brought my gun,' said he. 'And then, should I see one
of the scoundrels, I'd shoot him with no more scruple than I would a
dotterel. As it is, let me come upon one,'—he raised and flourished
his flail,—'and I will beat out his brains.'
Drownlands walked with difficulty. Where the surface under the water
was frozen, there it was slippery. Where it was broken through and
broken up by the wain wheels and horse hoofs, there it was slough.
Ruts, still frozen, were in places two or three feet in depth, and they
were filled. Invisible under the water, he was liable to sink into
them. He stumbled along, angry, swearing, advancing with labour, forced
to hold his lantern, first to one side, then to the other, to make sure
that he was not turning from his road, his sole guide being the sedge
lines, one on each side.
The roads in the Fens are not made of stone, for stone is not to be
found in the Fens. The soil hardens with drought and frost. In rainy
weather it is a slough. The draining-machines, being almost constantly
at work, suck all the moisture out of the soil, and as it dries it
shrinks. Now that the water from the canal was overflowing the fen,
it rippled on innocuously over the icy case, but wherever it could
penetrate through that case, at every crack, at every dint, it was
drunk in in heavy draughts by the thirsty soil, that immediately heaved
and swelled as it imbibed the moisture, and in so doing dissolved into
slough.
The tide continued to flow. In the yard the water had been hardly as
high as the instep. It now flowed over the boot tops.
The water was intensely cold.
Drownlands had on his boots, such as he wore ordinarily, but not
his wading boots that reached to the thighs. He had not thought it
necessary to wear such protectors in frosty weather. Those he wore did
not extend higher than his calves. Already, in one of his plunges into
a rut filled with water, he had soaked his feet, his boots, so far from
serving as a protection, being an encumbrance. The flail, moreover, was
of small service; the handfast was not of length sufficient for him to
probe the water before him and sound his way. Would that he had drawn
on his wading-boots—would that he had brought a leaping-pole!
Drownlands turned his head over his shoulder and looked back at the
house. He could see the light from the kitchen and that from his
office—the latter partially, as, owing to the broken glass in the
window, he had closed the shutters. He had left his lamp burning, and
he could distinguish its light in a line where the shutters closed
imperfectly.
It seemed to the man that the distance he had come was greater than it
really was.
The difficulty of advancing must increase with every few minutes. In a
quarter of an hour it would not be possible to traverse the distance
between Prickwillow and the embankment save by boat.
He must reach the tow-path, and hasten along it to the nearest station,
where a gang of workmen was quartered, with implements and material
ready on an emergency.
There was no time to be lost. Every minute was of importance.
Drownlands knew but too well that if his farm were inundated, it would
be rendered valueless for several years. It would not be utter ruin, as
he had the savings of the past to eat into, but it would prevent his
reaping advantage from his land till it had been completely recovered
of the effects of the flood.
Struggling with the rising tide, he succeeded in getting upon the
highway. But now his difficulties were the greater, for he had entered
into the current that poured from the Lark. The water rushed over his
knees. The cold was almost insupportable. With body bent, step by step,
helping himself onwards with the flail, but unable always to trust it,
owing to the pits in the submerged surface, he advanced slowly.
He held up the lantern and looked round. The tallow candle through the
horn sides but feebly illumined the night. It showed the gurgling water
in which he was wading, but it showed nothing beside. He did not any
longer know his direction. He must stem the current, but was unable
to judge where the edge and where the centre of the current were that
poured against him.
When he lowered his lantern, he was aware of a lurid light in the sky
above the embankment, and saw now and then a brilliant spark thrown up.
That there was a fire somewhere he could not doubt, and concluded that
the rioters who had cut the embankment were continuing their incendiary
work as before. He could not see the wheel of fire; he was too low down
for that, but he saw the illumination caused by it. Suddenly his feet
gave way, and he fell in the water. He had gone into one of the deepest
cart-ruts. As he fell, his lantern was extinguished.
It was now impossible for him to return. He could not, if he wished
it, have retraced his steps. His only possible course was to scramble
up the bank, and to do this he now devoted all his energies. But
unhappily he had reached precisely that point where the bank had been
cut through, and was therefore exposed to the full force of the outrush
of the river. As, by a desperate effort, he recovered his feet, he
could see the lip of water curling over, reddened by the reflection
of the fire beyond. He was drenched in the ice-cold water, but that
was nothing to the anguish in his feet; they were turning dead, numbed
by the water in which they had been immersed so long without proper
protection.
But this was not all. No sooner had Drownlands reached the slope of the
embankment than he became aware that the little assistance rendered him
by the frost was at an end. The rush of water had broken up the gault
of which the bank was formed, was eating at every moment farther into
it, and widening the mouth by which it poured from the bed of the river
upon the low reclaimed land. The moistened marl was greasy under his
feet. When he slipped and endeavoured to catch at the bank, his hands
sank into the sodden clay, and the tenacious matter held his fingers
like glue. His feet, moreover, went deep into the clay, and to extract
them was difficult.
It became apparent to Drownlands that he must battle for his life
against the current.
He endeavoured to assist himself in his ascent by the staff of the
flail, but this proved of no help to him, as it sank with the pressure
applied to it in the glutinous mass. He strove to heave himself up,
and could not; his feet, dead with cold, and, through their loss of
sensation, no longer able to feel the bottom, slipped from under him.
He could not extract his staff from the marl. All he was able to do
was to cling to it, and pant and recover breath, and then make another
desperate effort forward.
The water, tearing through the fissure in the bank, broke off masses
of the clay, half frozen, and whirled them down, and along with them
blocks of river ice that had broken up. It was sometimes difficult to
ascend the embankment, the slope of which was steep, in the face of a
strong wind; it was a hundred times more difficult now, when it had to
be done against a rushing torrent, and that of water which curdled the
blood in the veins, knotted the muscles with cramp, and paralysed the
sinews.
No thought of revenge on those who had cut the bank now occupied the
mind of Drownlands—no thought of having the leak stopped. The one
absorbing consideration was how to escape from the deadly-cold raging
current.
Then a sharp cant of ice whirled down, cut his knuckles and jarred
his fingers, so that he let go the flail with one hand, but seized it
in time with the other to save himself from being swept away. He was
carried off his feet, and in trying to right himself drove one foot so
deeply into the marl, that, when he endeavoured to pluck it forth, the
tenacious matter held his boot and tore it off his foot. The intensity
of the cold was, however, so great, that he was not sensible of the
loss. He looked up. The red auroral light was still illumining the sky
behind the bank. He held to the flail that was planted in the clay. If
that gave way, his hold on life would be gone.
Now he saw above him a dark figure on the bank, and he cried, 'Help!
help!'
'Who calls there?'
'It is I—Ki Drownlands.'
The man made no effort to descend. He folded his arms, and said slowly
in harsh tones—
'I cannot help you. I am Ephraim Beamish. You are prepared to testify
against some twenty of my comrades, and to send them to the gallows.
Which is of most worth, your life, you Judas, or theirs?'
'Help! I will say nothing.'
'I cannot trust you,' said Beamish. 'Wretched man, water was created
of God to cleanse away transgression. Go, wash thee and be clean—wash
thee and be free from thy sins.'
Then a torch flared above the bank. Mark was there with Zita.
'Who is there? What is this?' Mark asked, with an agitated voice. The
blazing tarred wood, sending up a golden burst of flame, illumined the
upturned countenance of Drownlands. The struggling man raised his arm
to wipe the water and sweat from his eyes and screen them from the
brilliant light.
'It is the master,' said Zita. 'Save him, Mark! Oh, do save him!'
Instantly, but with caution, Mark descended, digging his heels deep
into the marl at each step, and held the torch aloft, wavering,
guttering, throwing out sparks in the wind. 'Give me your hand,' said
the young man.
The exhausted, desperate Drownlands withdrew his arm from before his
eyes.
In the burning wood was a copper nail, and this now sent forth a
lambent, grass-green flame, in the light of which Drownlands' face was
like that of a corpse. The man, in his extreme peril and desire for
help, stretched forth his hand.
Then the wind blew the flame so that the face of Mark was illumined.
Suddenly Tiger Ki snatched his hand back again.
'A Runham—no!'
He endeavoured by a frantic effort to ascend the bank by his own
efforts. There ensued a terrible scene—the struggle of a well-nigh
spent man with the adverse elements to deliver himself from his
position. He fought with the water and the clay, tossing a spray about
him, pounding with his feet, one shod, the other bare, churning clay
and water around him.
Failing to mount one step above where the flail was rooted, he
discontinued his profitless effort, and, clinging with both hands to
the stay, cried—
'Zita, I will owe life to you, or to none!'
Without a thought for herself, the girl leaped to his aid.
In a moment his disengaged arm was round her.
'We may die—if we cannot live—together.'
'Let go!' shouted Mark, and laid hold of Zita by the arm. 'Let go!'
'To you—never!'
Without consideration Mark drove the burning torch against his hand
that clasped the girl.
With a shriek Drownlands relaxed his hold.
At that moment, Ephraim, who had descended carefully, had laid hold of
the flail above where Drownlands' hand had clutched it. He stooped,
and, exerting his full force from above, drew it forth from the clay in
which it was fast.
At once Drownlands slid away in the stream. Still clinging to the
flail, he was carried off his feet, out of the range of light cast by
the torch, and under water.
'Go!' said Beamish, waving his hand over the torrent. 'Go! thou accuser
of thy brethren! Go, wash away thy sins in the water that drowns thee!'
He saw the flood before him glittering like gold. He looked round. The
gangers had come—summoned by Kainie.
'Save him! save him!' cried Zita.
'Where is he?—who can say? Carried forth into the outer darkness;
rolled away in the baptismal flood—who can say whither?' answered
Ephraim.
'No,' said one of the gangers. 'No help is possible.'
'God have mercy on a sinful soul!' said Ephraim.