THE STORM
The seven callers came as threatened, and Hilda began to think that
perhaps there was some kind of companionship possible in the wilds
of Southern California. She was delighted with these young English
fellows, and sat in the midst of them, laughing at their fun, listening
to their stories, and answering their eager questions about the dear
old country for which they all longed.
“How does the Strand look?” asked Graham.
“Does Tottenham Court Road seem the same as ever?” asked Lauderdale.
“Has Park Lane changed at all?” asked Holles, putting on airs of great
superiority.
In spite of his recent illness, he was in capital spirits, and seemed
to be much liked by his companions. “Yes, I’ve been quite ill,” he
said, in answer to Hilda’s inquiries; “but Lauderdale nursed me
beautifully, and made me drink about a dozen bottles of Elliman’s
embrocation, and then I got well enough to write several parting
letters to my friends in England, and to make my will. And that’s a
very puzzling thing to do satisfactorily when you have many valuable
things to leave. I left my pipe first to Lauderdale, then to Graham,
then to Bob, and then to Ben Overleigh, and finally I kept it for
myself!”
“You ought to have kept your rifle for yourself,” Hilda said
graciously, “though I am glad you did not. I am delighted to have it
from you, and hope to do it justice.”
“A rifle is a very handy thing to have in this country,” he answered.
“One may want it at any moment for a coyote, or a jack-rabbit, or a
Mexican.”
“Or perhaps a deer!” suggested Hilda, slyly.
They all laughed at that, and Jesse Holles as heartily as any one,
and then Ben said he thought they ought to be starting home. It was
evident that none of them wanted to go, and Holles, being particularly
fond of music, was looking at the piano; but Ben seemed anxious about
the weather, and insisted on their leaving at once with him. They
called him the High Binder, explaining to Hilda the exact meaning of a
High Binder, and his mysterious and subtle influence over his Chinese
compatriots, whom he ruled with an iron rod.
“Just see how we all quail before him,” said Holles, who had been
talking incessantly the whole evening; “and no doubt you’ve observed
how speechless we are in his presence. He has only to wag his pig-tail
and we go flat on our faces at once.”
“Don’t be such a confounded ass,” said Ben, laughing. “Come along,
boys.”
“All right, man alive,” said Holles, “but at least let me finish this
piece of cake first. We don’t get cake like this at your place, Ben. Do
you know, Mrs. Strafford, when we want to kill coyotes, we get Ben to
make us some of his best sponge-rusks. That does the trick at once!”
“Why don’t you give them to the deer also?” suggested Hilda,
mischievously. There was a shout of laughter at this, and Robert lit
the lantern, and opened the door.
“It’s raining, boys,” he said; “and what’s more, it is coming on
harder.”
“Hurrah for California!” sang out Graham; “we shall all make our
fortunes.”
“Yes,” said Robert Strafford, “we shall all be saved if the country
gets a thorough good drenching. But you will be pretty well sprinkled
by the time you reach home.”
“Never mind,” replied Holles, cheerily. “I’m the only delicate one, you
know, and the others won’t take much harm, being of coarser fibre. And
I have nothing on to spoil except the High Binder’s tie, which I will
put in my pocket. So good-night, Mrs. Strafford, and three cheers for
yourself and Bob and dear old England.”
The High Binder and the seven other callers gave three ringing cheers
and cantered off to their homes. Long before they reached their
destinations, the storm broke forth with unbridled fury. The rain
poured down in torrents, gaining in force and rage every moment.
The wind suddenly rose, and all but swept away the riders and their
horses, and shook to its very foundation the frail little frame-house
where Robert and Hilda were watching by the log-fire, listening to the
cracking and creaking and groaning of the boards. The wind rose higher
and higher. It seemed as though the little house must assuredly be
caught up and hurled headlong. Now and then Nellie got up and howled,
and Hilda started nervously.
“It’s all right,” Robert said reassuringly. “The wind will soon drop,
and as for the rain, we have wanted it badly. We should all have been
ruined this year, if the wet season had not set in. It’s all right,
Nell. Lie down, old girl.”
But the wind did not drop. Hour after hour it raged and threatened, and
together with the tremendous downpouring of the rain, and the rushing
of the water in streams over the ground, made a deafening tumult.
“I wish we had kept those boys,” Robert said once or twice. “It is not
fit for any one to be out on such a night. When these storms come,”
he added, “I always feel so thankful that Ben urged me to buy land on
the hill-slopes rather than in the valley. Three years ago there was
fearful damage done in the valley. One of the ranchers had eight acres
of olives completely ruined by the floods from the river. You must see
the river to-morrow. You saw it yesterday, didn’t you? Well, you will
not recognise it after a day or two if the rain continues. And from the
verandah you will hear it roaring like the ocean.”
Later on he said:
“I rather wish I hadn’t filled up my reservoir so full with
flume-water. It never struck me to make allowances for the rain coming,
idiot that I am. But there is a good deal of seepage going on, and I
thought I might as well fill it up to just below the overflow.”
“You are not anxious about it?” she asked kindly.
“No, no,” he said, cheerfully; “but I shall go out early to-morrow
morning, and raise the flood-gate, just to be well on the safe side.
One can’t be too careful about reservoirs. They are the very devil if
the dam bursts. But mine is as solid as a fortress. I’d stake my life
on that. I worked like ten navvies over that earth dam. I used to feel
rather like that man in Victor Hugo’s ‘Toilers of the Sea.’ Do you
remember how he slaved over his self-imposed task?”
“Poor old Bob,” she said, bending over him, and speaking in a gentler
voice than was her wont, “and you are not in the least fit for such
hard work. I believe you have worn yourself out; and all for me, and I,
if you only knew, so little worthy of it.”
“I wanted our little ranch to be just as compact as possible,” he said,
“so that I might offer to you the best I could in this distant land.
As for myself, I am perfectly well, now you’ve come out to me: only
I am always wishing that I could have made a home for you in the old
country. I never forget it whatever I am doing.”
He seemed to be waiting for an answer, but Hilda was silent, and when
at last she spoke, it was about her seven callers, and the next moment
there was a terrible blast of wind, and the door was blown in and
hurled with a crash to the ground. After that, their whole attention
was taken up in trying to keep out the rain, and in securing the
windows, until at last, worn out with their long watch, they slept.
Hilda dreamed of England, and of everything she had left there. She
dreamed that she heard Robert saying: “_And next year there will be the
lemons to be cured._” “_Next year_,” she answered, and her heart sank.
Robert dreamed of the eight acres of olives ruined by the floods three
years ago, and of his own ranch situated so safely on the hill-slope,
and of his reservoir. He dreamed he was still working at it, still
strengthening the earth dam, and still scraping out the cañon so as to
have room for about five hundred thousand gallons of water.
[Illustration: “HE LIFTED A PIECE OF IRON PIPING.”]
“_It’s nearly done_,” he said; “_about three weeks more, and then
I’m through with it_.”
At six o’clock he woke up with a start, and found the storm unabated
in strength and fury. Suddenly he remembered about his reservoir, and,
seized with a sudden panic, he flung out of the house, and, fighting
his way through the rain and wind, crossed the ranch, and tore up the
trail which led to the reservoir.
For one second he stood paralysed.
The water was just beginning to flow over the earth dam. He had come
too late, and he knew it. He lifted a piece of iron piping which lay
there at hand, and he tried to knock out the flood-gate, but the
mischief was done. In less than ten minutes, the water had cut a hole
five feet deep in the dam, and was rushing down the ranch, carving for
itself a gully which widened and deepened every second.
In the blinding rain and wind Robert Strafford stood helpless and
watched the whole of the dam give way: he watched the water tearing
madly over the best part of his ranch: he saw numbers of his choicest
lemon-trees rooted up and borne away: he saw the labour of weeks and
months flung, as it were, in his face. And he was helpless. It was all
over in half an hour, and still he lingered there, as though rooted to
the spot,--drenched by the rain, blown by the wind, and unconscious of
everything except this bitter disappointment. But when his mind began
to work again, he thought of Hilda: how it was through him that she had
left her home and her surroundings and all her many interests, and had
come to him to this far-off country, to this loveless land, to this
starved region--yes, to this starved region, where people were longing
and pining for even a passing throb of the old life, for even a glance
at a Devonshire lane or a Surrey hill; for some old familiar scene of
beauty or some former sensation of mental or artistic satisfaction;
for something--no matter what--but just something from the old country
which would feel like the touch of a loved hand on a bowed head. He
was holding out his arms, and his heart and whole being were leaping
towards the blessèd land which had nurtured him: even as tiny children
cry out for their mother, and can be comforted and satisfied by her
alone. Ah, his thoughts of, and his desires for his old home, had
broken down the barrier of control, and were tearing wildly onwards
like that raging torrent yonder. And the more he desired the dear
old country and thought of it, all the more bitterly did he reproach
himself for taking Hilda away from it, for urging her to come and cut
herself off from the things most worth having in life--_and for what_?
To share his exile, and his loneliness, and his failure. That was all
he had to offer her, and he might have known it from the beginning, and
if he could not save himself, at least he might have spared her.
At last he turned away suddenly, and, battling with the storm, made his
way home. Hilda ran out to meet him.
“Robert,” she said, seeing his pale face, “I’ve been so anxious--what
has happened?--what is the matter?”
“Do you hear that noise?” he said excitedly; “do you hear the roar of
that torrent? It is our reservoir let loose over our ranch. How do you
like having married a man who has failed in everything?”