Mrs Linacre went to the spring as usual, the next morning. If the
weather had been doubtful--if there had been any pretence for supposing
that the day might not be fine, she would have remained at home. But
she looked in vain all round the sky for a cloud: and the wide expanse
of fields and meadows in the Levels, with their waving corn and fresh
green grass, seemed to bask in the sunshine, as if they felt its luxury.
It was a glowing August day;--just such a day as would bring out the
invalids from Gainsborough to drink the waters;--just such a day as
would tempt the traveller to stop under the shady shed, where he could
see waters bubbling up, and taste of the famous medicinal spring, which
would cure the present evil of heat, whatever effect it might have on
any more lasting ailment. It was just the day when Mrs Linacre must
not be missed from her post, and when it would be wrong to give up the
earnings which she might expect before sun-down. So she desired her
children not to leave the premises,--not even to go out of their
father's sight and hearing; and left them, secure, at least, that they
would obey her wishes.
They were quite willing to do so. Mildred looked behind her, every few
minutes, while she worked in the garden, to see whether Roger was not
there, and at every rustle that the birds made among the trees on the
Red-hill,--the eminence behind the house,--she fancied that some one was
hidden there. Oliver let his tools and his alabaster lie hidden, much
as he longed to be at work with them. Mildred had lost her greatest
treasure,--the white hen. He must take care of his greatest treasure.
Twice, in the course of the morning, he went in, having thought of a
safer place; and twice more he put them back among the straw, as safest
there after all. He let them alone at last, on Mildred saying that she
was afraid Roger might somehow discover why he went in and out so often.
They ran to the mill three or four times to tell their father that the
brown tent was still under the bank in the carr, and that they could see
nobody; though the wild-ducks and geese made such a fluttering and
noise, now and then, that it seemed as if some one was lurking about the
ponds. Often in the course of the morning, too, did Mr Linacre look
out of the mill-window, or nod to them from the top of the steps, that
they might see that he did not forget them. Meantime, the white smoke
curled up from the kitchen chimney, as Ailwin cooked the dinner; and
little George's voice and hers were often heard from within, as if they
were having some fun together.
The children were very hot, and began to say that they were hungry, and
thought dinner-time was near, when they suddenly felt a strong rush of
wind from the west. Oliver lost his cap, and was running after it, when
both heard a loud shout from their father, and looked up. They had
never heard him shout so loud as he now did, bidding them run up the
Red-hill that moment. He waved his arm and his cap in that direction,
as if he was mad. Mildred scampered up the hill. She did not know why,
nor what was the meaning of the rolling, roaring thunder which seemed to
convulse the air: but her head was full of Roger; and she thought it was
some mischief of his. One part of the Red-hill was very steep, and the
ground soft. Her feet slipped on the moss first, and when she had got
above the moss, the red earth crumbled; and she went back at every step,
till she caught hold of some brambles, and then of the trunk of a tree;
so that, trembling and panting, she reached at last the top of the
eminence.
When she looked round, she saw a rushing, roaring river where the garden
had been, just before. Rough waters were dashing up against the hill on
which she stood,--against the house,--and against the mill. She saw the
flood spreading, as rapidly as the light at sunrise, over the whole
expanse of the Levels. She saw another flood bursting in from the
Humber, on the north-east, and meeting that which had just swept by;--
she saw the two floods swallowing up field after field, meadow after
meadow, splashing up against every house, and surrounding all, so that
the roofs, and the stacks beside them, looked like so many little
islands. She saw these things in a moment, but did not heed them till
afterwards,--for, where was Oliver?
Oliver was safe, though it was rather a wonder that he was so,
considering his care for his cap. Oliver was an orderly boy, accustomed
to take great care of his things; and it did not occur to him to let his
cap go, when he had to run for his life. He had to part with it,
however. He was flying after it, when another shout from his father
made him look round; and then he saw the wall of water, as he called it,
rolling on directly upon the house. He gave a prodigious spring across
the garden ditch, and up the hill-side, and but just escaped; for the
wind which immediately preceded the flood blew him down; and it was
clinging to the trunk of a tree that saved him, as his sister had been
saved just before. As it was, his feet were wet. Oliver panted and
trembled like his sister, but he was safe.
Every one was safe. Ailwin appeared at an upper window, exhibiting
little George. Mr Linacre stood, with folded arms, in the doorway of
his mill; and his wife was (he was thankful to remember) on the side of
a high hill, far away. The children and their father knew, while the
flood was roaring between them, what all were thinking of; and at the
same moment, the miller and his boy waved, the one his hat, and the
other a green bough, high and joyously over their heads. Little George
saw this from the window, and clapped his hands, and jumped, as Ailwin
held him on the window-sill.
"Look at Geordie!" cried Mildred. "Do look at him! Don't you think you
hear him now?"
This happy mood could not last very long, however, as the waters,
instead of going down, were evidently rising every moment. From the
first, the flood had been too deep and rapid to allow of the miller
crossing from his mill to his house. He was a poor swimmer; and no
swimmer, he thought, could have avoided being carried away into the wide
marsh, where there was no help. Then, instead of the stream slackening,
it rushed more furiously as it rose,--rose first over the wall of the
yard, and up to the fourth--fifth--sixth step of the mill-ladder, and
then almost into the branches of the apple-trees in the garden.
"I hope you will not mind being hungry, Mildred," said her brother,
after a time of silence. "We are not likely to have any dinner to-day,
I think."
"I don't mind that, very much," said Mildred, "but how do you think we
are to get away, with this great river between us and home?"
"We shall see what father does," said Oliver. "He is further off still,
on the other side."
"But what is all this water? When will it go away?"
"I am afraid the embankments have burst. And yet the weather has been
fine enough lately. Perhaps the sluices are broken up."
Seeing that Mildred did not understand the more for what he said, he
explained--
"You know, all these Levels were watery grounds once; more wet than the
carr yonder. Well,--great clay banks were made to keep out the Humber
waters, over there, to the north-east, and on the west and north-west
yonder, to keep two or three rivers there from overflowing the land.
Then several canals and ditches were cut, to drain the land; and there
are great gates put up, here and there, to let the waters in and out, as
they are wanted. I am afraid those gates are gone, or the clay banks
broken down, so that the sea and the rivers are pouring in all the water
they have."
"But when will it be over? Will it ever run off again? Shall we ever
get home again?"
"I do not know anything about it. We must wait, and watch what father
will do. See! What is this coming?"
"A dead horse!" exclaimed Mildred. "Drowned, I suppose. Don't you
think so, Oliver?"
"Drowned, of course.--Do you know, Mildred," he continued, after a
silence, during which he was looking towards the sheds in the yard,
while his sister's eyes were following the body of the horse as it was
swept along, now whirled round in an eddy, and now going clear over the
hedge into the carr,--"do you know, Mildred," said Oliver, "I think
father will be completely ruined by this flood."
"Do you?" said Mildred, who did not quite know what it was to be ruined.
"How? Why?"
"Why, it was bad enough that so much gypsum was spoiled yesterday. I am
afraid now the whole quarry will be spoiled. And then I doubt whether
the harvest will not be ruined all through the Levels: and I am pretty
sure nothing will be growing in the garden when the waters are gone.
That was not our horse that went by; but our horse may be drowned, and
the cow, and the sow, and everything."
"Not the fowls," said Mildred. "Look at them, all in a row on the top
of the cow-shed. They will not be drowned, at any rate."
"But then they may be starved. O dear!" he continued, with a start of
recollection, "I wonder whether Ailwin has thought of moving the meal
and the grain up-stairs. It will be all rotted and spoiled if the water
runs through it."
He shouted, and made signs to Ailwin, with all his might; but in vain.
She could not hear a word he said, or make anything of his signs. He
was vexed, and said Ailwin was always stupid.
"So she is," replied Mildred; "but it does not signify now. Look how
the water is pouring out of the parlour-window. The meal and grain must
have been wet through long ago. Is not that a pretty waterfall? A
waterfall from our parlour-window, down upon the tulip-bed! How very
odd!"
"If one could think how to feed these poor animals," said Oliver,--"and
the fowls! If there was anything here that one could get for them! One
might cut a little grass for the cow;--but there is nothing else."
"Only the leaves of the trees, and a few blackberries, when they are
ripe," said Mildred, looking round her, "and flowers,--wild-flowers, and
a few that mother planted."
"The bees!" cried Oliver. "Let us save them. They can feed themselves.
We will save the bees."
"Why, you don't think they are drowned?" said Mildred.
The bees were not drowned; but they were in more danger of it than
Mildred supposed. Their little shed was placed on the side of the
Red-hill, so as to overlook the flowery garden. The waters stood among
the posts of this shed; and the hives themselves shook with every wave
that rolled along.
"You cannot do it, Oliver," cried Mildred, as her brother crept down the
slope to the back of the shed. "You can never get round, Oliver. You
will slip in, Oliver!"
Oliver looked round and nodded, as there was no use in speaking in such
a noise. He presently showed that he did not mean to go round to the
front of the shed. That would never have done; for the flood had washed
away the soil there, and left nothing to stand upon. He broke away the
boards at the back of the bee-shed, which were old and loosely fastened.
He was glad he had come; for the bees were bustling about in great
confusion and distress, evidently aware that something great was the
matter. Oliver seized one of the hives, with the board it stood on, and
carried it, as steadily as he could, to a sunny part of the hill, where
he put it down on the grass. He then went for another, asking Mildred
to come part of the way down to receive the second hive, and put it by
the first, as he saw there was not a moment to lose. She did so; but
she trembled so much, that it was probable she would have let the hive
fall, if it had ever been in her hands. It never was, however. The
soil was now melting away in the water, where Oliver had stood firmly
but a few minutes before. He had to take great care, and to change his
footing every instant; and it was not without slipping and sliding, and
wet feet, that he brought away the second hive. Mildred saw how hot he
was, as he sat resting, with the hive, before climbing the bank, and
begged that he would not try any more.
"These poor bees!" exclaimed Oliver, beginning to move again, on the
thought of the bees being drowned. But he had done all he could. The
water boiled up between the shed and the bank, lifted the whole
structure, and swept it away. Oliver hastened to put down the second
hive beside the first; and when he returned, saw that the posts had
sunk, the boards were floating away, and the remaining hive itself
sailing down the stream.
"How it rocks!" cried Mildred. "I wish it would turn quite over, so
that the poor things might get out, and fly away."
"They never will," said Oliver. "I wish I had thought of the bees a
little sooner. It is very odd that you did not, Mildred."
"I don't know how to think of anything," said Mildred, dolefully; "it is
all so odd and so frightful!"
"Well, don't cry, if you can help it, dear," said her brother. "We
shall see what father will do. He won't cry;--I am sure of that."
Mildred laughed: for she never had seen her father cry.
"He was not far off crying yesterday, though," said Oliver, "when he saw
your poor hen lying dead. He looked--but, O Mildred! What can have
become of the Redfurns? We have, been thinking all this while about the
bees; and we never once remembered the Redfurns. Why, their tent was
scarcely bigger than our hives; and I am sure it could not stand a
minute against the flood."
While he spoke, Oliver was running to the part of the hill which
commanded the widest view of the carr, and Mildred was following at his
heels,--a good deal startled by the hares which leaped across her path.
There seemed to be more hares now on the hill than she had seen in all
her life before. She could not ask about the hares, however, when she
saw the brown tent, or a piece of it, flapping about in the water, a
great way off, and sweeping along with the current.
"Hark! What was that? Did you hear?" said Oliver, turning very pale.
"I thought I heard a child crying a great way off," said Mildred,
trembling.
"It was not a child, dear. It was a shriek,--a woman's shriek, I am
afraid. I am afraid it is Nan Redfurn, somewhere in the carr. O dear,
if they should all be drowned, and nobody there to help them!"
"No, no,--I don't believe it," said Mildred. "They have got up
somewhere,--climbed up something,--that bank or something."
They heard nothing more, amidst the dash of the flood, and they fancied
they could see some figures moving on the ridge of the bank, far out
over the carr. When they were tired of straining their eyes, they
looked about them, and saw, in a smoother piece of water near their
hill, a dog swimming, and seeming to labour very much.
"It has got something fastened to it," cried Mildred;--"something tied
round its neck."
"It is somebody swimming," replied Oliver. "They will get safe here
now. Cannot we help them? I wish I had a rope! A long switch may do.
I will get a long switch."
"Yes, cut a long switch," cried Mildred: and she pulled and tugged at a
long tough thorny bramble, not minding its pricking her fingers and
tearing her frock. She could not help starting at the immense number of
large birds that flew out, and rabbits that ran away between her feet,
while she was about it; but she never left hold, and dragged the long
bramble down to the part of the hill that the dog seemed to be trying to
reach. Oliver was already there, holding a slip of ash, such as he had
sometimes cut for a fishing-rod.
"It is Roger, I do believe; but I see nothing of the others," said he.
"Look at his head, as it bobs up and down. Is it not Roger?"
"O dear! I hope not!" cried Mildred, in a tone of despair. "What shall
we do if he comes?"
"We must see that afterwards: we must save him first. Now for it!"
As Oliver spoke, the dog ducked, and came up again without Roger,
swimming lightly to the bank, and leaping ashore with a bark. Roger was
there, however,--very near, but they supposed, exhausted, for he seemed
to fall back, and sink, on catching hold of Oliver's switch, and by the
jerk twitched it out of the boy's hand.
"Try again!" shouted Oliver, as he laid Mildred's bramble along the
water. "Don't let go, Mildred."
Mildred let the thorns run deep into her fingers without leaving her
hold. Roger grasped the other end: and they pulled, without jerking,
and with all their strength, till he reached the bank, and they could
help him out with their hands.
"Oh, I am so glad you are safe, Roger!" said Oliver.
"You might have found something better than that thorny switch to throw
me," said Roger. "My hands are all blood with the spikes."
"Look at hers!" cried Oliver, intending to show the state that his
sister's hands were in, for Roger's sake; but Mildred pulled away her
hands, and hid them behind her as she retreated, saying,--
"No, no. Never mind that now."
Oliver saw how drenched the poor boy looked, and forgave whatever he
might say. He asked Mildred to go back to the place where they had been
standing, opposite the house; and he would come to her there presently.
He then begged Roger to slip off his coat and trousers, that they might
wring the wet out of them. He thought they would soon dry in the sun.
But Roger pushed him away with his shoulder, and said he knew what he
wanted;--he wanted to see what he had got about him. He would knock
anybody down who touched his pockets. It was plain that Roger did not
choose to be helped in any way; so Oliver soon ran off, and joined
Mildred, as he had promised.
"I do not like to leave him, all wet, and so tired that I could knock
him over with my little finger," exclaimed Oliver. "But he won't trust
me about any thing."
"There is father again! Tell him," cried Mildred.
Both children shouted that Roger was here, and pointed behind them; but
it was plain that their father could not make out a word they said,
though they had never called out so loud in their lives. Roger heard
them, however, as they judged by seeing him skulking among the trees
behind, watching what use they were making of his name.
The children thought their father was growing very anxious. He still
waved his hat to them, now and then, when he looked their way; but they
saw him gazing abroad, as if surprised that the rush of waters did not
abate. They observed him glance often round the sky, as if for signs of
wind; and they longed to know whether he thought a wind would do good or
harm. They saw him bring out, for the third time, a rope which he had
seemed to think too short to be of any use; and this appeared to be the
case, now as at first. Then he stooped down, as if to make a mark on
the side of the white door-post (for the water had by this time quite
hidden the steps); and Oliver thought this was to make out, for certain,
whether the flood was regularly rising or not. They could not imagine
why he examined so closely as they saw him do the door lintel, and the
window-frame. It did not occur to them, as it did to him, that the mill
might break down under the force of the current.
At last it was clear that he saw Roger; and from that moment, he
scarcely took his eyes from his children. Oliver put his arm round
Mildred's neck, and said in her ear,--
"I know what father is watching us for. He is afraid that Stephen is
here too, and no one to take care of us;--not even Ailwin."
"Perhaps Stephen is here,--in the wood," cried Mildred, in terror. "I
wish this water would make haste and run away, and let us get home."
"It cannot run faster than it does. Look how the waves dash along!
That is the worst of it:--it shows what a quantity there is, where this
came from. But I don't believe Stephen is here. I have a good mind to
ask Roger, and make him tell me."
"No, don't, Oliver! Stephen may be drowned. Do not put him in mind."
"Why, you see he does not care for anything. He is teasing some live
thing at this minute,--there, on the ground."
Oliver himself forgot everything but the live animals before his eyes,
when he saw how many there were under the trees. The grass was swarming
with mice, moles, and small snakes; while rabbits cocked up their little
white tails, in all directions, and partridges flew out of every bush,
and hares started from every hollow that the boy looked into.
"All soaked out of their holes;--don't know what to do with themselves;--
fine sport for those that have a mind to it," said Roger, as he lay on
the ground, pulling back a little mouse by its long tail, as often as it
tried to run away.
"You have no mind for sport to-day, I suppose, Roger. I should not
think anybody has."
"I don't know;--I'm rarely hungry," said the boy.
"So were we; but we forgot it again. Father is in the mill there..."
"You need not tell me that. Don't I see him?"
"But we think he is looking out for Stephen."
"He won't find him," said Roger, in a very low voice; so low that Oliver
was not sure what he said.
"He is not here on the hill, then, Roger?"
"On the hill,--no! I don't know where he is, nor the woman either. I
suppose they are drowned, as I was, nearly. If they did not swim as I
did, they must be drowned: and they could hardly do that, as I had the
dog."
The children looked at each other; and their looks told that they
thought Roger was shocked and sorry, though he tried not to appear so.
"There might have been a boat, perhaps, out on the carr. Don't you
think the country-people in the hills would get out boats when they saw
the flood spreading?"
"Boats, no! The hill-people have not above three boats among them all.
There are about three near the ponds; and they are like nut-shells. How
should any boat live in such a flood as that? Why, that flood would
sweep a ship out to sea in a minute. You need not think about boats, I
can tell you."
"But won't anybody send a boat for us?" inquired Mildred, who had drawn
near to listen. "If they don't send a boat, and the flood goes on, what
are we to do? We can't live here, with nothing to eat, and no beds, and
no shelter, if it should rain."
"Are you now beginning to cry about that? Are you now beginning to find
that out, after all this time?" said Roger, contemptuously.
"I thought we should get away," sobbed the little girl. "I thought a
boat or something would come."
"A pretty silly thing you must be!" exclaimed Roger.
"If she is silly, I am silly too," declared Oliver. "I am not sure that
it is silly to look for a boat. There are plenty out on the coast
there."
"They are all dashed to pieces long ago," decided Roger. "And they that
let in the flood will take good care you don't get out of it,--you, and
your outlanders. It is all along of you that I am in this scrape. But
it was shameful of them not to give us notice;--it was too bad to catch
us in the same trap with you. If uncle is drowned, and I ever get out
alive, I will be revenged on them."
Mildred stopped crying, as well as she could, to listen; but she felt
like Oliver when he said,--
"I don't know a word of what you mean."
"I dare say not. You foreigners never know anything like other people."
"But won't you tell us? Who made this flood?"
"To be sure, you weren't meant to know this. It would not have done to
show you the way out of the trap. Why--the Parliament Committee at
Lincoln ordered the Snow-sewer sluice to be pulled up to-day, to drown
the king's lands, and get rid of his tenants. It will be as good as a
battle gained to them."
The children were aghast at the wickedness of this deed. They would not
believe it. It would have been tyrannical and cruel to have obliged the
settlers, who were not interested in a quarrel between the king of
England and his people, to enlist, and be shot down in war. They would
have complained of this as tyrannical and cruel. But when they were
living in peace and quiet on their farms, paying their rents, and
inclined to show good-will to everybody, to pull up the flood-gates, and
let in the sea and the rivers to drown them because they lived in the
king's lands, was a cruelty too dreadful to be believed. Oliver and
Mildred did not believe it. They were sure their father would not
believe it; and that their mother, if ever she should return to her home
and family, would bring a very different account--that the whole
misfortune would turn out to be accidental. So they felt assured: but
the fact was as Roger had said. The Snow-sewer sluice had been pulled
up, by the orders of the Committee of the Parliament, then sitting at
Lincoln: and it was done to destroy the king's new lands, and deprive
him of the support of his tenants. The jealous country-people round
hoped also that it would prevent foreigners from coming to live in
England, however much they might want such a refuge.
Some of the sufferers knew how their misfortune happened. Others might
be thankful that they did not; for the thought of the malice of their
enemies must have been more bitter than the fear of ruin and death.