All the party slept for some hours, as quietly and unconsciously as
little George himself. If the children were so weary that the dreadful
uncertainty about their father's fate could not keep them awake, it is
probable that a knowledge of their own danger might have failed to
disturb them. But they had little more idea than George himself of the
extent of the peril they were in. They did not know that the Levels
were surrounded by hills on every side but towards the sea; or, if they
knew, they did not consider this, because the hills were a great way
off. But, whether they were far or near, this circle of hills was the
cause of the waters rising to a great height in the Levels, when once
the defences that had kept out the sea and the rivers were broken down.
As the hills prevented the overflowing waters from running off on three
sides, it was clear that the waters must rise to the level of the sea
and the rivers from which they flowed in. They had not reached this
height when the children lay down to rest, though Ailwin was so sure
that the worst was over; and the danger increased as they slept; slept
too soundly even to dream of accidents.
The first disturbance was from the child. Oliver became aware, through
his sleep, that little George was moving about and laughing. Oliver
murmured, "Be quiet, George. Lie still, dear," and the child was quiet
for a minute. Presently, however, he moved again, and something like a
dabbling in water was heard, while, at the same moment, Oliver found his
feet cold. He roused himself with a start, felt that his bed was wet,
and turning out, was up to the ankles in water. By the light of the
embers, he saw that the floor was a pond, with some shoes floating on
it. His call woke Ailwin and Mildred at once. Roger did not stir,
though there was a good deal of bustle and noise.
Mildred's bed was so high above the floor as to be still quite dry.
Oliver told her to stay there till he should settle what was to be done
next: and he took up the child to put him with Mildred, asking her to
strip off his drenched clothes, and keep him warm. All the apparel that
had been taken off was luckily on the top of a chest, far above the
water. Oliver handed this to his sister, bidding her dress herself, as
well as the child. He then carefully put the fire together, to make as
much light as possible, and then told Ailwin that they must bestir
themselves, as the fire would presently be drowned out.
Ailwin was quite ready to bestir herself; but she had no idea beyond
mounting on chests, chairs, and drawers; unless, indeed, she thought of
the beam which crossed the ceiling, to which she was seen to cast her
eyes, as if envying the chicks which hung there, or the hen which still
slept, with her head beneath her wing, out of present reach of the
flood.
Oliver disapproved of the plan of mounting on the furniture of the room.
It might be all very well, he said, if there were nothing better to be
done. But, by the time the water would reach the top of the chests, it
would be impossible to get out by the door. He thought it would be
wisest to reach the roof of the house while they could, and to carry
with them all the comforts they could collect, while they might be
removed in a dry condition. Ailwin agreed, and was going to throw open
the door, when Oliver stopped her hand.
"Why, Oliver," she cried, "you won't let one do anything; and you say,
all the time, that there is not a minute to be lost."
Oliver showed her that water was streaming in at the sides of the door,
a good way higher up than it stood on the floor. He said that the door
was a defence at present,--that the water was higher on the stairs than
in the room, and that there would be a great rush as soon as the door
should be opened. He wished, therefore, that the bedding, and the
clothes from the drawers, and all else that they could remove to the top
of the house, should be bundled up, and placed on the highest chest of
drawers, before the water should be let in. They must borrow the line
from the clothes' basket, to tie round George's waist, that they might
not lose him in the confusion. One other thing must be done: they must
rouse Roger, or he might be drowned.
Ailwin was anxious that this last piece of duty should be omitted:--not
that she exactly wished that Roger should be drowned,--at least, not
through her means; but she, ignorant as she was,--had a superstitious
feeling that Roger and his family had caused this flood, and that he
could save himself well enough, though he appeared to be sunk in a
drunken sleep. She indulged Oliver, however, so far as to help him to
seize the lad, neck and heels, and lay him, dripping as he was, upon the
table.
Before the bedding and clothes were all tied up, the door of the room
shook so as to threaten to burst in, from the latch giving way. It
struck everybody that the person who should open it would run the risk
of being suffocated, or terribly knocked about; and yet, it was hardly
wise to wait for its bursting. Oliver, therefore, tied a string to the
knob of the bolt, then slipped the bolt, to keep the door fastened while
he lifted and tied up the latch. The door shook more and more; so,
having set the window wide open, he made haste to scramble up to where
Mildred was, wound the cord which was about George's waist round his own
arm, bade Mildred hold the child fast, and gave notice that he was going
to open the door. It was a strange party, as the boy could not help
noting at the moment,--the maid standing on the bed, hugging the
bed-post, and staring with frightened eyes; Roger snoring on the table,
just under the sleeping hen on the beam; and the three children perched
on the top of a high chest of drawers. George took it all for play,--
the new sash he had on and the bolting the door, and the climbing and
scrambling. He laughed and kicked, so that his sister could scarcely
hold him. "Now for it!" cried Oliver.
"Oh, Oliver, stop a minute!" cried Ailwin. "Don't be in such a hurry to
drown us all, Oliver. Stop a moment, Oliver."
Oliver knew, however, that the way to drown them all was to stop. At
the first pull the bolt gave way, the door burst open, as if it would
break from its hinges, and a great body of water dashed in. The first
thing the wave did was to wash Roger off the table; the next, to put out
the fire with a fizz,--so that there was no other light but the dawn,
now advancing. The waters next dashed up against the wall opposite the
door; and then by the rebound, with less force, against the drawers on
which the children sat. It then leaped out of the window, leaving a
troubled surface at about half the height of the room. Above the noise,
Ailwin was heard lamenting, the chicks cluttering, the hen fluttering,
and George laughing and clapping his hands.
"You have George safe?" said Oliver. "Very well! I believe we can all
get out. There is Roger's head above water; and I don't think it is
more than up to my neck; though everybody laughs at me for being a short
boy."
He stepped down upon a chair, and then cautiously into the water. It
was very nearly up to his chin.
"That will do," said he, cheerfully. "Now, Ailwin, you are the
tallest;--please carry George out on the roof of the house, and stay
there with him till I come."
Ailwin made many lamentations at having to step down into the water; but
she took good care of the child, carrying him quite high and dry.
Oliver followed, to see that he was tied securely to the balustrade on
the roof. While he was doing this, Ailwin brought Mildred in the same
way. Mildred wanted to be of use below; but her brother told her the
best thing she could do was to watch and amuse George, and to stand
ready to receive the things saved from the chambers,--she not being tall
enough to do any service in four feet of water.
It was a strange forlorn feeling to Mildred,--the being left on the
house-top in the cold grey morning, at an hour when she had always
hitherto been asleep in bed. The world itself, as she looked round her,
seemed unlike the one she had hitherto lived in. The stars were in the
sky; but they were dim,--fading before the light of morning. There were
no fields, no gardens, no roads to be seen;--only grey water, far away
on every side. She could see nothing beyond this grey water, except
towards the east, where a line of low hills stood between her and the
brightening sky. Poor Mildred felt dizzy, with so much moving water
before her eyes, and in her ears the sound of the current below. The
house shook and trembled, too, under the force of the flood: so that she
was glad to fix her sight on the steady line of the distant hills. She
spoke to George occasionally, to keep him quiet; and she was ready to
receive every article that was handed up the stairs from below: but, in
all the intervals, she fixed her eyes on the distant hills. She thought
how easy it would be to reach that ridge, if she were a bird; and how
hard it would be to pine away on this house-top, or to sink to death in
these waters, for want of the wings which inferior creatures had. Then
she thought of superior creatures that had wings too: and she longed to
be an angel. She longed to be out of all this trouble and fear; and
considered that it would be worth while to be drowned, to be as free as
a bird or an angel. She resolved to remember this, and not to be
frightened, if the water should rise and rise, till it should sweep her
quite away. She thought that this might have befallen her mother
yesterday. No boat had been seen on the waters in the direction of
Gainsborough; no sign had reached the family that any one was thinking
of them at a distance, and trying to save them: and Oliver and Mildred
had agreed that it was likely that Mrs Linacre had heard some report of
the pulling up of the sluices, and might have been on her way home when
the flood overtook and drowned her. If so, she might be now an angel.
If an angel, Mildred was sure her first thought would be, as it had ever
been, of her home and her children; and the little girl looked up to see
whether there was anything like the shadow of wings between her and the
dim stars. She saw nothing; but still, in some kind of hope, she softly
breathed the words, "O, mother! Mother!"
"Mother! Mother!" shouted little George, as he overheard her. Oliver
leaped up the stairs, and inquired whether there was a boat,--whether
mother was coming.
"No, Oliver, no. I was only thinking about mother; and so, I suppose,
was George. I am afraid you are disappointed;--I am sorry."
Oliver bit his lip to prevent crying, and could not speak directly; but
seemed to be gazing carefully all around the waste. He said, at last,
that he had many times thought that his mother might come in a boat: and
he thought she might still, unless...
"Unless she should be an angel now," whispered Mildred,--"unless she
died yesterday; and then she might be with us now, at this very moment,
though we cannot see her;--might not she?"
"Yes, I believe so, dear. And, for one thing, I almost wish she may not
come in a boat. Who should tell her that father was carried away into
all those waters, without having spoken one word to us?"
"If they are both dead, do you not think they are together now?" asked
Mildred.
"Certainly. Pastor Dendel says that all who love one another well
enough will live together, where they will never die any more."
"And I am sure they did," said Mildred.
"If they see us now," said Oliver, "it must make a great difference to
them whether we are frightened and miserable, or whether we behave as we
ought to do. Let us try not to be frightened, for their sakes, dear."
"And if they are not with us all the while, God is," whispered Mildred.
"O, yes; but God knows ... God will not expect..."
"Surely He will feel in some way as they do about us," said Mildred,
remembering and repeating the verse Pastor Dendel had taught her.
"`Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that
fear him.'"
"`For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.'" So
Oliver continued the psalm.
"There comes the sun!" exclaimed Mildred, happy to greet some one
familiar object amidst this strange scene.
The scene hardly appeared the same when the sun, after first peeping
above the hills like a golden star, flamed up to its full size, and cast
a broad glittering light over the wide waters, and into the very eyes of
the children. They felt the warmth too, immediately; and it was very
cheering. The eastern hills now almost disappeared in the sun's blaze;
and those to the west shone very clearly; and the southern ridge near
Gainsborough, looked really but a little way off. The children knew,
however, that there were three full miles between them and any land,
except their Red-hill, and a few hillocks which peeped above the flood
in the Levels: and there was no sign of a boat, far or near. Oliver
checked a sigh, when he had convinced himself of this; and began to look
what had become of the people they knew in the Levels.
Neighbour Gool's dwelling stood low; and nothing was now to be seen of
it but a dark speck, which might be the top of a chimney. It was
possible that the whole family might have escaped; for Gool and his wife
were to be at Haxey yesterday; and they might there hear of the mischief
intended or done to the sluices, in time to save the rest of the
household. Some of the roofs of the hamlet of Sandtoft stood above the
waters; and the whole upper part of the chapel used by the foreigners;
and many might easily have found a refuge there. Further off, a
conspicuous object was the elegant crocketed spire of one of the
beautiful Lincolnshire churches, standing high, as if inviting those who
were dismayed to come and save themselves in the air from the dangers of
the waters. Oliver wondered whether any sufferers were now watching the
sunrise from the long ridge of the church-roof, or from the windows of
the spire.
One of the most curious sights was the fleets of haystacks that were
sailing along in the courses of the currents. As the smaller stacks
were sometimes shot forward rapidly, and whirled round by an eddy, while
a large stately stack followed forwards, performing the same turns of
the voyage, Mildred compared them to a duck and her ducklings in the
pond, and Oliver to a great ship voyaging with a fleet of small craft.
They saw sights far more sorrowful than this. They grieved over the
fine large trees--some in full leaf--that they saw tumbling about in the
torrents which cut through the stiller waters; but it was yet worse to
see dead cows, horses, pigs, and sheep carried past--some directly
through the garden, or over the spot where the mill had stood. There
were also thatched roofs carried away entire; and many a chest, chair,
and cow-rack--showing the destruction that had gone on during the night.
While the distant scene was all bright and lovely in the sunrise, these
nearer objects, thickly strewn in the muddy waters, were ugly and
dismal; and Oliver saw that it did him and his sister no good to watch
them. He started, and said they must not be idle any longer.