Luke burst into my room early next morning, to tell me that the waters
were out to a height such as no one remembered. The Don, which had
been turned by the Dutchmen into a channel connecting it with the Aire,
had taken its old course with fury, flooding the western side of Crowle
as with a second deluge. I jumped out of bed, almost forgetting the
aching and soreness of my head and the stiffness of my limbs, for, if
this account were true, the inhabitants of the Crowle vicarage were in
jeopardy. Luke assured me that "'twas no manner of use to try to reach
Crowle by riding, for t' causey was under water;" so after I had broken
fast with a crust and a cup of small ale, I had out my boat, and taking
Luke with me, set sail northward. The marsh had become a deep lake,
and the low-lying fields in our neighbourhood were flooded, and here
and there we came on the carcase of a sheep or a pig; but when we drew
near to Crowle there was a sorry sight indeed. The cornfields on the
slopes of Totlets had disappeared under muddy water, and several
clay-built cottages had crumbled and fallen in. Some of the recent
tenants were about in punts, gathering up what they could of their bits
of furniture. From them we learned that no life had been lost there.
The folk had been aroused by the barking and whining of a dog, and had
taken refuge on higher ground, before the old walls fell in. As we
came nearer to the town, the water was so cumbered with wreckage, that
we let down the sail, and took to the oars, lest we should foul among
the bundles of reeds, straw-stooks, empty casks, dead sheep and swine,
hay rakes, pails, and other things innumerable, which were strewn on
the surface of the water. Some of the more westerly houses were
surrounded with water up to the lower windows, and at sight of us, the
inhabitants, who were at the upper windows, set up a great cry for
help. We shouted that we would come, or send to them, as soon as might
be, our first concern being the vicarage. Passing Farmer Dowson's on
our right, we saw him and his men, waist-deep in the water, staggering
under bags of corn, carrying pigs in their arms, struggling with
frightened horses, leading them to the higher ground behind the
farmstead. The farmer hailed us, but only to relieve his soul by
shouting a malediction on the Dutch. The water became shallower as we
neared the church, for (as we discovered later) the first rush of the
river had brought down an immense quantity of silt, which had been
deposited in a bed sloping from the wall of the churchyard. To our
surprise we found the depth at the gate of the vicarage not more than
two feet. We moored our boat to the old oak, and with some difficulty,
for the bottom was soft, made our way to the house, where we found the
inmates in safety on the upper floor. My aunt was loud in lamentation
over her goods and chattels and store of food. The vicar's most
pressing care seemed to be a funeral, which had been arranged for this
day. Doctor Goel was poring over a plan of the drainage, going again
through calculations, which proved to his satisfaction that the channel
cut for the Don was deep and wide enough to carry off its water into
the Aire in any possible event, and that the embankment raised must
infallibly resist whatever pressure could be brought against it. He
was so perfectly certain that what had happened could not by any chance
occur, that I was obliged to laugh in his face--and mightily offended
him.
"You cannot suppose, doctor," said I, "that the Islonians have broken
down the embankment for the pleasure of drowning themselves."
"I do not know that," he snapped. "They are stupid enough."
Remembering how the water had gradually accumulated before the coming
of the great rain, I believed that neither the drain for the turning of
the Don, nor that for the conveyance of the surface water had been
large enough for its purpose, but I did not offer my wisdom to the
doctor just then.
Mistress Goel asked many questions, and wept and wrung her hands to
hear of the distress of the people, but she was quickly her calm self
again, entering into talk of what had best be done for them. My first
notion had been to collect as many boats as were to be had, and to go
to bring the folk from the outlying farms and cottages to Crowle.
"But you need not do that," said she, "unless there is danger of a
house giving way. The water is subsiding."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"By a mark I made on the staircase wall at five o'clock this morning.
The water has sunk three inches since then."
I said something in praise of her self-possession in a time of alarm,
but she urged me to the present work.
"The poor people out in the flood," said she, "will have little or
nothing to eat. Their food will be spoiled, and they will have no
means of procuring fresh supplies. That is the first thing to be
thought of. And the mere sight of a friendly face will do them much
good. Will it not be best to load your boat with a stock of such
provisions as are to be had, and to send some one of influence round
the town to urge others to follow you?"
To this I agreed, and, after some further talk, I turned to go. As I
stepped into the water at the foot of the stairs, she called to me from
the landing--
"Oh, Frank, don't forget milk for the children."
I looked up, and saw her face burning. "I will not forget," I
answered, and out I strode with the music lingering in my ears.
Old men and women still tell the tale of the great flood, and part of
the tale is how the "young squire" of Temple did feats of rowing,
lifting, and carrying in helping the folk. If I was bold and active
beyond the ordinary on that day, and I think I was, the secret is that
I had heard my name for the first time from the lips of my love, and
seen her blush to use it.
It is no affair of mine to repeat the chimney-corner story. It
suffices to say that I and Luke and a dozen willing fellows worked our
hardest until dark, visiting every farmstead and every hovel which
remained standing on the lower levels.
A score cottages right on the bank of the river, occupied by labourers
and marshmen and their families, had been swept clean away, with what
destruction of life could not then be known. The farmers' losses were
terribly heavy. The havoc done among horses and cattle was
considerable, and hundreds of swine and thousands of sheep had been
drowned. Stacks were overthrown and spoiled, and the standing crops
were ruined.
How the men cursed the Dutch! Their threats of vengeance made me wish
that Mistress Goel and her father were safely out of Crowle. For our
Islonians are not fellows who ease their minds with a curse, and then
think no more of it, but of that slow, stubborn kind, which smoulders
first and does not flame until the end. I assured them that their
"Solicitor" would demand compensation for their losses. I argued that
this disaster might have so much good in it as to justify my father's
resistance to the Vermuijden scheme, and oblige the King and his
advisers to hear reason. But I met with bitter and scornful laughter
for the most part.
One man said, "'Taint no sort of use to talk so, Mester Frank. Your
father is a real gentleman, but he's no match for the Dutch devils. We
didn't ought to ha' listened to his peaceable kind of discoursing.
Squire Portington's is the way to deal with robbers and murderers like
Vermuijden and his gang."
Pretty nearly all were of the same mind, and I returned to the vicarage
dispirited and apprehensive, and so weary and spent and heavy with
sleep, that I crept off and tumbled into bed, too tired even to talk
with Mistress Goel.
Most unexpectedly, the vicar requested me to remain a few days at his
house. Hitherto, we had had little to say to each other; he never had
much to say to any one. I had disliked him from my early childhood,
when I got the impression that he was bound in parchment like one of
his folios, and that the back of his head had been chopped off. His
days were passed among those folios, and Mr. Butharwick spoke with
respect of his learning, but what good came of it I never knew. He
preached sermons of an inordinate length, and totally incomprehensible
to me, and, as I judged, to his parishioners generally, who composed
themselves for slumber when they heard the text. My aunt attended to
all the affairs of the parish, and always inspected the parson before
he left the house, to see that he was decently clad, and had his
handkerchief in his pocket.
The calamitous flood aroused him to the everyday life around him, not
all at once, but slowly. He entered into the sorrows of his bereaved
parishioners especially, of whom there were many. One Coggan, a small
farmer, had been found dead in the water at the foot of a ladder
descending from his bedroom. Another man, a somewhat drunken fellow,
had been overtaken by the flood, while sleeping off his drink on the
kitchen floor. An old man, whose people had left him alone for the
night, had been caught and overwhelmed in the act of opening his door,
apparently. The child of Ducker, the blacksmith, had been ailing for a
day or two, but on the night of the inundation had fallen asleep on a
couch, and slept so peacefully that the mother would not disturb its
slumber, but covered it up as it lay, and went to bed. She found it
drowned in the morning. Besides these cases in the town itself,
numerous bodies were recovered in the neighbourhood of the cottages on
the banks of the Don and elsewhere. In these circumstances, many
appeals were made to the vicar for guidance, help, and consolation.
The sexton lost his wits, poor man, and there were difficulties in
making preparation for the decent interment of so many bodies, as well
as difficulties as to who would guarantee payment for this and that.
We were hard put to it to find a messenger to go for the coroner, every
man's hands were so full of his own, or his master's business.
Consequently, the vicar impressed me into service, and gave everything
into my charge. I must do him the justice to acknowledge that he was
diligent in attending to his spiritual duties, and generous with his
purse. The painful and somewhat horrible details are no necessary part
of my narrative, and so I leave them; but, as may be supposed, I was
fully occupied for several days.
There was an hour every evening which made up, and more than made up,
for all the weariness and trouble of the day, when Mistress Goel talked
awhile with me, or sang to me. Our talk was mainly of the one
engrossing subject, and there could be no quiet, private chat at such a
time; but to see her and to hear her voice was enough to make me happy
for the present.
Luke made me somewhat uneasy by telling me that he had overheard
conversation at the White Hart, and elsewhere, to the effect that
Doctor and Mistress Goel had come over to Crowle "to charm the water."
Dame Hind had had much to say of the certainty of their being in
commerce with the devil, and some of her guests swore to put an end to
the witches at the first opportunity. Although I did not think these
threats very serious, and had perfect confidence in my own ability to
protect my friends, being in high favour with the Crowle folk, I
contrived to restrain them from going beyond the vicarage grounds,
except when I could accompany them. Luke was exceedingly afraid, but
as he had always a keen nose for scent of danger, his fears did not
excite mine.
On the third evening of my stay, Sheffield was announced. He met me
without a trace of confusion.
"Ha, Vavasour!" he said. "Give you joy of coming to life again."
"Thanks--much thanks," I replied.
"Coming to life again!" cried my aunt. "What do you mean, my lord?"
"Has he told you nothing? When last I saw him, on the night of the
thunderstorm, he was struck by lightning."
"Struck by lightning!" my aunt echoed.
"Yes; I overtook him on the road, and we got into some sort of quarrel,
about what I don't remember, for, to confess the truth, I was too
drunk. We were riding side by side, jabbering angrily, when I saw a
ball of fire flashing down. It struck Vavasour, and he fell from his
horse. I am ashamed to say that I was so dazed and terrified that I
rode off as fast as I could, and left him to his fate."
Being pressed to give my account, I said, "I did not see the flash
which knocked me down, and I can tell you no more, except that I found
myself in bed next morning, little the worse."
My aunt gave me a scolding (with tears in her eyes) for my reticence,
and was touchingly grateful to Sheffield for informing her of the peril
I had been in. Doctor Goel's interest was in the meteor, and he asked
so many questions about the size and shape and colour of it, the degree
of its brightness, the length of time it was visible, and so forth,
that Sheffield got himself into a coil of contradictions, and then
excused them on the ground that he was very drunk at the time.
"By Bacchus," said the doctor, "you must have been."
One person kept silence, but her bright eyes were observant of
Sheffield and me. Doctor Goel turned to me, and endeavoured to extract
some account of my feelings, but I stuck to it that I could tell
nothing more. Sheffield took himself off, declining my aunt's
invitation to stay supper.
Mistress Goel hinted a desire for a walk, and I, being eager enough,
stood ready to accompany her. While she put on her hat and wrap, I
waited in the hall, and Luke, who was never far from my elbow at this
time, came to me with my pistols.
"You may need 'em," said he, in a low voice. "I've seen some ugly
fellows about this evening."
I laughed, but took them, and the belt which Luke had not forgotten,
and armed myself besides with a tough ash-stick, which I reckoned the
best weapon a man could carry.
We took the path winding upward through the wood to Crown Hill, the
moon, now nearly full, shining intermittently through scudding clouds
into our faces.
"I want to ask about the attempt made on your life the other evening,"
my companion said abruptly. "Oh!" she continued, "I know the tale
about a thunderbolt is altogether false. You were struck down from
behind, and left for dead. Your assailant cannot understand how it is
you are alive, so he makes up a story as a defence for himself,
perhaps, or, more probably, to provoke you to say something which may
clear up what is mysterious to him. And you saw the design, and would
not betray the secret."
"This is wizardry!" I said, staring.
"Oh dear, no! it is ordinary woman's wit, enlightened by the looks
which passed between you and your enemy."
I granted that she had rightly discerned, but said nothing of what
followed the knock-down blow.
"You are determined to keep secret the manner of your rescue?" she
asked.
"At present, yes," I answered.
"Doubtless you have good reason. But there is another matter on which
I wished to speak with you. Do you allow that there is such a virtue
as prudence? If so, is it prudent to expose yourself to an enemy--a
powerful, crafty, unscrupulous enemy?"
Then I burst out, "Do you bid me run away from him? Because----"
"Stay one moment," said she. "Surely prudent avoidance and cowardly
flight are not the same thing."
"There is too much of a family likeness for me to distinguish between
them," said I.
"So I feared," she answered. "What is the noise we hear?"
It was the noise of a crowd--hurrying feet, hoarse shouts. It came
rapidly near. The mob was coming up the hill. Now I could hear
distinctly "foreign witch," "Dutch devil," and other cries of a fouler
kind. Unmistakably we were pursued. On the crest of the hill stood an
old windmill, which might shelter us, and thither I hurried Mistress
Goel. The door was padlocked, but one strong kick crashed it open.
Pushing my companion inside, I took up the door, laid it across the
entrance, dragged a few sacks of corn against it, and had a tolerable
barricade; not a moment too soon, for the mob was upon us, with a yell
of disappointed rage at sight of the obstacle in their way.
"Can you load a pistol?" I asked Mistress Goel.
"Yes," she answered.
I detached powder-horn and shot-bag from my belt, and passed them to
her.
"I will throw my pistol into your lap, if I have to fire; reload it and
give it to me, keeping well behind me," I ordered.
By this time the crowd had gathered in front of the mill. Luckily we
were in shadow, and the moonlight was full on them. For half a minute
they halted, and a murmur of talk among the leaders was the only sound.
Then one of them stepped forward.
"One stride nearer, and I fire," I said quietly.
"Nobody wants to hurt you, Measter Frank," the fellow said. "Give up
the witch, that's all we ask."
"There's no witch here," I answered. "There is a lady, the guest of
your vicar; woe betide you if she comes to harm at your hands! But you
will have to murder me before you lay finger on her."
"She be a witch, and brought the water on us; Nancy Isle knows it for
sartain sure," replied the spokesman.
(This Nancy Isle was a poor creature in her dotage, but still held in
repute as a "wise woman.")
"She gave Mat, hostler, stuff that cured his ague in no time," shouted
a voice. "Has a charm to tame wild things," cried another. "Doth wash
all over in cold water every morning, which would kill any Christian;
Lisabeth, maid at the vicarage, told me herself," bawled another. "She
makes hell-broth of galls and toadstools and caterpillars. I've seen
the old devil agathering 'em for her," said another. "On with you, you
cowards," shrieked a female voice. "Are you feared of one man, and him
bewitched? She killed my innocent babe, and I'll tear her eyes out."
And Ducker's wife came forward with a rush, three men following.
I shot the first of them through the shoulder, and he fell; I brought
the butt of the pistol down heavily on one hand of the woman, who was
clawing at the barrier like a wild cat, which sent her howling. The
other two men came on slowly enough to give me time to toss the pistol
into my companion's lap, and to cower for an upward blow with the fist.
I struck one of them under the chin, and he went backward insensible;
but the second got half over the door before I could deal with him.
With some shame, though I was fighting for more than life, I gave him a
kick in the "wind," which settled him for a while. So far I had
splendid luck, and the enemy were a bit cowed, but if they came on in a
body, I must be overborne by sheer weight. Their pluck was not
sufficient for that just now; they began to throw stones, which was not
a bad move, seeing that I was bound to guard the doorway. I received a
tremendous blow on the jaw. Then followed a lull, which ended in one
of the crowd calling to me--
"We don't want to kill thee, young squire."
"Thanks," I replied. "I am not much killed so far."
"We don't want to kill thee. Give up the witch, and we'll swim her.
If she sinks, we'll go away. If she floats, thou'lt leave her. We
can't say fairer nor that."
"Now listen to me," I answered. "You can have any one tried by proper
course of law for witchcraft. If you take the law into your own hands,
I shall kill some of you, and the rest will be hanged for killing me."
They replied by a volley of stones, and a furious rush. A stone struck
Mistress Goel, and she sank to the floor. I could do nothing for her,
save push her with my foot as far back from the door as I could reach,
for the men were on me, shouting, and brandishing sticks and knives. I
stepped back, counting on their jamming themselves together in the
opening, which they did, coming on pell-mell. Attempting no kind of
guard, I stood to crack intruding heads. A knife was thrown, and stuck
in my left shoulder, whether in cloth or flesh, I knew not. My good
ash-plant struck three heads down, and my boot smashed a face at a
corner. Then the fellows drew off a little, dragging their fallen
comrades with them, but still facing the doorway; so I whipped out
pistol, and shot one of them in the leg. That sent them out of range.
"Hand me the pistol," said my companion, rather faintly.
"Thank God!" I ejaculated, but I could not leave my post to see her.
Some of the men were talking loudly, and pointing; others ran off in
various directions. Shortly, they returned, carrying dead branches and
heaps of straw. They made for the other side of the mill, keeping well
out of pistol shot. Plainly they meant to set the mill on fire and
burn us out. It would blaze quickly, for it was slightly built, and
the timber old and dry, and I feared that the place would be too hot
for us long before a large number of people were drawn to the spot; but
our best plan was to stay where we were as long as might be possible.
The bulk of our enemies now sat on the ground to await the result of
the fire. I might have broken a hole through the mill wall, but our
safety--such as it was--depended on there being only one opening to
guard. So, keeping one eye on the enemy, I looked at Mistress Goel's
hurt. It was a gash over the eye, and had bled copiously, but the
bleeding had ceased. She insisted on cutting open my sleeve, from
which the knife had fallen, after sticking there some time, and found a
deepish cut, and my sleeve soaked with blood. She bound up the wound
with a strip from her dress. Now we heard a great crackling and
roaring outside. The fire had taken hold.
"Frank," said Mistress Goel, and my heart thrilled at the word and the
tone. "Frank, promise that you will kill me rather than let me fall
into their hands. I would ask for a pistol to do it myself, but you
may have need of them. Promise me, by all that is most sacred to you."
"I promise you that you shall not be taken alive, by the most sacred of
all things to me--my love for you."
The heat of the mill grew stifling. Snaky flames came through the
cracks and crevices, and hissed upward.
"We must try for life," I said, and pulled away the sacks and the door.
The enemy awaited us. All at once, they turned the other way, and the
head constable rode into view, followed by a posse of young men, some
on horseback, some on foot. Then the crowd fled a dozen ways, and I
carried my fainting lady into the midst of a group of cheering,
laughing friends.