Tom Pinder lost no time in waiting upon his solicitor and acquainting
him with his desire that the proceedings should be stayed even if to
stay them meant an ignominious surrender. Mr. Sykes did not conceal his
surprise.
"What about the plaintiff's costs?" he asked. Tom said he had reason to
hope these would not be insisted on. "It is yours I'm much concerned
about."
"As to them, make your mind easy. I shall make out an account of my
actual disbursements, and you must pay me off by such instalments as you
find convenient."
"But your labour?" protested Tom, "the days of manna are over long ago,
and I suppose that if popular opinion were ought to go by lawyers would
be the last body of men in the world for whom a special dispensation
from the general rule would be made."
"Ah well! popular opinion is sometimes wrong, let us hope, despite the
saying, _Vox populi vox Dei_."
"I thought you were a Radical, Mr. Sykes."
"Yes, yes, but I am not so ardent a lover as to be blind to the faults
of my mistress. But about this stay of proceedings. I must sound
Wimpenny. I'm afraid he'll be for his pound of flesh and all the other
blood he can squeeze out of you. He's very sore about that interim
injunction and the judge's remarks at the time would scarcely be as balm
of Gilead to him."
"I suppose Mr. Wimpenny will take his orders from his client."
"Oh! of course. Well, we shall see what we shall see. That's oracular,
if it doesn't convey much information. What about your scheme of
Co-operative production on advanced lines? Is that to die an untimely
death? It seemed to me a most promising essay in social economics. So
long as you were content to work like a slave and be a poor man, with no
prospect of being anything but a poor man, the system seemed flawless."
"Systems for the regulation of human affairs will never be flawless, Mr.
Sykes, till the men and women who are the flesh and blood of all systems
are also flawless. Now I am far from being that."
"I presume not," said the lawyer, with something like a sigh. "I suppose
you've got tired of this sacrificial altar and have secured a lucrative
berth, and, like all the others, are going to worship the golden calf.
_Sic transit gloria mundi_. I shed a tear to the memory of Co-op Mill
and all the high resolves it enshrines. Who shall write its cold '_Hic
jacet_.'"
"Nay, Mr. Sykes, I am not a Latin scholar; but if you will change your
goose quill for the graver's chisel, you shall inscribe on the corner
stone of Co-op Mill a proud, a defiant _Resurgam_."
"What! You intend to try again?"
"Certainly, I am already looking for premises _below_ Mr. Tinker's Mill.
Unless the Holme takes to flowing uphill, I shall be safe from my
present adversary, at all events."
Mr. Sykes rose and grasped his client's hand warmly. "That is good
hearing, Mr. Pinder; you are a man. Ah! I don't wonder at Miss --"; but
here the man of law checked himself.
"Confound it. The murther was nearly out," he muttered.
"I'll write to Wimpenny at once," he said, "but I mustn't seem too hot
for a settlement or he'll hold out for all he knows. I shall begrudge
him every penny that goes from your pocket to his. Well, good day. I
wish I were a manufacturer, I'd turn world-mender too."
"Oh! If you shew the world the example of one lawyer who has an idea
beyond his bill of costs, you'll have done your share," laughed Tom.
"Convert nine others and Huddersfield need not fear the fate of Sodom
and Gomorrah."
Pinder had more trouble with Ben Garside and his colleagues than he had
encountered from his solicitor. Ben was for a fight to the finish.
"Tinker's shewing th' blue feather," he opined. "What's come ovver thee,
Tom? Tha'rt nooan bahn to duff when things are lookin' up a bit?
Besides, th' best terms we can mak 'll be to pay us own 'torney an' gi'
up Co-op Mill. We med as weel be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and if
we're to be ruined we med as well be ruined gradely as hauf ruined. Aw
reckon th' bailies 'll be bun to leeave us a bed to lig on, an we'st
scrat along some rooad till they put th' coffin lid ovver us. Aw say
feight to th' deeath. Talk abaat bowin' th' knee to Baal?"
"Baal!" quoth Hannah curtly. "Baal wer' a respectable sort compared wi
Jabez Tinker; an' as for that Wimpenny, oh! If aw wer' a man, wouldn't
aw just. That's all."
What "just" the irate dame would have done, words failed her to express,
but judging from Hannah's gestures it was something that would not have
improved Nehemiah's personal appearance.
But the negotiations with that gentleman which Mr. Sykes opened up did
not promise to bear immediate fruit. It is possible that Mr. Wimpenny
saw everything to be gained and nothing to be lost--by himself--in the
sweetness long drawn out of proceedings in Chancery. The defendant's
overtures were not met in a conciliatory spirit, and Sykes advised that
nothing further should be attempted in that direction. Tom felt that he
could do no more, and when he told Dorothy the steps he had taken to
fulfil the promise she had wrung from him, Dorothy expressed herself
content.
"You can hold out till May 21st?" She only asked.
"Oh, dear me, yes. From what I can judge when a lawyer in a Chancery
suit contemplates a move in the proceedings, he takes a month to think
it over, then he takes counsel's opinion, then he takes another month to
think over counsel's opinion, then he rests for a month to recuperate
his energies after their unwonted strain, then he writes to his London
agent indicating the step he wishes to be taken, the agent takes a month
to think over his principal's letter, and another month to reply to it,
and at the end of all the country solicitor changes his mind, and the
process circumbendibus begins _de novo_."
"You ought to have been a lawyer, Tom," commented Lucy. "You have been
thinking over a certain step to my knowledge for more than twelve
months, and you haven't taken it yet."
"And what's that, Lucy?" asked Dorothy.
"Oh! you'll know soon enough when he takes it," was the most explicit
answer that Dorothy could obtain, and with that she had to be content.
"I wonder why Dorothy mentioned the twenty-first of May next?" asked Tom
of Lucy, when they were alone together.
"Why she comes of age then, stupid," said Lucy, as shortly as ever she
was known to speak.
But some months must elapse before that eventful day was due in the
ordinary progress of the leaden-footed months. The Christmas of 1851 was
for all in whose fortunes we are concerned, but a cheerless and anxious
season. Work continued fairly good, and on that score there was nothing
much to complain of. The winter months were open and depressing. The old
adage that a green Yule makes a fat churchyard was amply verified. Low
fevers were rife. The strains of the waits on Christmas Eve failed to
arouse the sense of Christmas in the heart. Plum pudding and roast beef
failed to stimulate to cheerfulness when all around was a damp, drizzly,
clinging blanket of rain-charged atmosphere. For days together a pall of
moisture settled over the Valley. The moors were soaked, and oozed like
surcharged sponges. Every rill became a rivulet, every rivulet a river.
The lower lands contiguous to the Holme were flooded. The dams were
charged to the brinks, and in the mill-races the pressing waters
strained the stoutest shuttles. From the hillsides the swollen streams
brought rocky fragments rolling, tumbling, splashing. It was a man's
work to watch the river immediately below the tail-goits of every mill,
to prevent the goit being blocked by the flotsam of the stream, and the
water-wheel thrown into back-water.
It was an anxious time for Tom and Ben on more than one account. The
apprehensions that had long possessed Tom as to the safety of Bilberry
reservoir did not leave him. Rather he saw daily reasons for the more
concern. The new year of 1852 saw little improvement in the weather,
Almost daily Tom made his way to the banks of the great dam, surveying
it with anxious eye. When he spoke his fears to old residents, they were
pooh-poohed. It was the old cry of "Wolf." The people in most immediate
danger had been told so often that something was wrong with Bilberry
embankment, and for so long had the gloomy predictions of the local
Cassandras come to nought, that Tom spoke to deaf ears. None heeded him.
Even Ben accorded him only the attention of politeness. The people lower
down the Valley based their indifference to his suggestions of possible
peril upon the indifference of those nearer the reservoir. If the people
who lived cheek by jowl as it were with the big dam could afford to
laugh at Tom's dismal forebodings, why should they put themselves about.
They recommended Tom to permit the Commissioners to know something about
their business, and more than hinted that he had enough to do to look
after his own particular concerns without worrying himself about what
was after all a matter for the public authorities. It did not occur to
them to reflect that if a man is drowned it does not matter much to him
whether he has met his death through public or private defeasance.
On Tuesday, the 4th of February Tom had been as usual to market. He had
done his business early in the afternoon, but had been detained in town
by the necessity of seeing Mr. Sykes in connection with the eternal
lawsuit. Then he had to wait for a train so that it was long past the
hour for the evening meal when he reached Ben Garside's house in
Holmfirth. The tea-things had long been cleared away, but Hannah was
soon bustling about preparing an appetising meal of broiled rashers,
poached eggs, and tea and toasted teacake. The meal was grateful after
the long wearying day. It had been a depressing day. The market had been
slackly attended: the weather had something to do with that. It had
rained pitilessly all day, a steady, persistent, dogged downpour,
ceasing at times for the fragment of an hour, only to commence again,
and so on, as if it never meant to stop. And as it was on the Tuesday,
so it had been for three or four days before. At the "ordinary" at the
Queen Hotel, kept by Mrs. Beevers, in the Market Street, the
manufacturers from the valleys of the Colne and the Holme were full of
talk of choked tail-goits water piled back into the wheel-race so that
the wheel refused to turn upon its axis. The merchants shook their heads
gloomily over the mild, open weather. They declared, as their
grandchildren declare to-day, that when they were boys winter was
winter; but now there was no depending on the weather, and the almanac
was a snare and a delusion.
Tom lingered over his meal, luxuriating in the warmth of the room, and
the pleasing rest of mind and body. But about nine o'clock the rain
abated. The moon glided high in the heavens, sailing in and out among
the masses of the drifting clouds. It looked as if the weather might
take up after all. It was time it did. But wet or fine Tom had work to
do he had fixed to do that night, work which could only be done at the
mill, and which were better done that night. That done, the morrow would
be clear for the morrow's work. He would have an hour at his account
books, he told Ben, and sleep at the mill, and Jack--you have not,
reader, forgotten Work'us Jack--should bear him company. Hannah
protested in vain that "Tom was killing himself with overwork. Flesh and
blood couldn't stand it, and Tom would never make old banes if he went
on at that noit. It was bad enough to kill one's self to keep one's
self, but it was ten times worse to kill one's self building a house o'
cards, only to be blown down by that Jabez Tinker."
So Tom and Jack turned out into the night and set forth up the valley
toward Hinchliffe Mill. Their road lay at times by the winding
serpentine course of the river, and when the watery moon glanced
downwards with bleared eye from among the clouds they could see the
swollen waters. They met scarce a soul. It was late and a'ready the
lights in the village and on the hillsides were being extinguished in
the "house" or chamber. An occasional cur sadly bayed the moon. The
swollen waters of the river rolled in their bed with sullen sob. It was
a night of dread through which the growing wind wailed amid its tears.
The gloom of the hour and scene fell upon the comrades. Scarce a word
passed between them, as with bent heads and cloaks close drawn they made
their way through the mire of the high-road and the sloughs of known
bye-paths little trod. It was hard on ten of the night when the mill was
reached. Jack kindled a fire in the office-grate and sat beside it for a
time to dry his shoon. He made a brew of strong coffee for his master to
cheer him through his task. Then Jack in stocking-feet sought the
wool-hole where he had improvised a bed of unscoured pieces, greasy, but
snug and warm, and anon his loud breathing might be heard above the
beating of the storm without.
Up to something near the weird midnight hour Tom bent over his invoices
and books, fighting against the waywardness of thoughts that seemed
intent on anything but accounts. At length he abandoned his task half
done. He felt strangely wake and alert. At all times able to do with
little sleep,--that is a feature of your mill-worker--to-night he felt
that he should woo slumber in vain. Donning his pilot jacket that had
been steaming and drying on a chair-back before the fire, and lighting a
lanthorn and taking in his hand his stout gnarled shillelagh, bought
from an Irish hay-maker last harvest-time, he set forth alone on his
usual round of the mill-yard, leaving the outer door of the mill on the
latch. His round finished, led by what impulse, moved by that
presentment he did not stay to consider, he left the mill-yard and began
to climb the hill towards Bilberry reservoir. He walked sharply, for the
night air was biting shrewdly, and Tom was a noted walker. His long
strides soon covered the distance that lay between the mill and the
reservoir bank. Tom hummed an air to keep him company in that vast
solitude. The sky was clearer now than an hour or two before, but the
night was still dark enough to make the feeble glimmer of the lanthorn
grateful. Tom moderated his pace as he neared the embankment. Was it
worth while to climb its steep face or should he turn his steps
downhill. He could hear the water above his head lapping against the
copings of the bank. Still, as he had come so far he might, he thought,
as well walk the round of the embankment. He was on the huge abutment
that turned its breast towards the valley the long barricade that cooped
up the vast pile of water, and slowly, the lanthorn dangling by his side
and swaying in the wind, he began to tread the path on the embankment
top, slowly for in the uncertain light, a slip might cost him a sousing,
and it was no hour for a cold bath. But, as he walked, peering ahead to
pierce the gloom, and watching carefully his steps by the lanthorn's
pale glimmer, he came, midway in his course, upon a sight that checked
him with sudden halt, and made his heart stand still. There, at his very
feet the water was trickling over the bank, and down the outside. A thin
flow, perhaps, a couple of feet in width, had worn the upper soil, and
now a continuous stream, not a quarter of an inch in depth, was gently,
silently ebbing over the embankment. Even as Tom gazed spell-bound, he
was sensible that the opening widened, the water that overflowed was
deeper, and its escape in quicker time. A great fear seized on Tom, a
dreadful thought well-nigh crushed his brain. He felt powerless to move.
Then, with a cry, he rushed heedless along the embankment to the
culvert. Not a drop of water flowed over the culvert's lip. The pent
giant had found an outlet for itself, and was making for it. Tom ran
back to the gap he had but just left. Even by this faint light he saw
the breach was wider, the furrow deeper. Sick at heart, scarce realising
what he did, Tom with stick and hand tried to tear up stones, cobbles,
or sods that might stem the growing current. He spent his time and in
vain. Fast as he made his tiny barrier, the licking wavelets undermined
it and washed it gently down the embankment side; and the stream that
now, oh! so silently, so grimly wore away the surface layers, bit and
gnawed into the vast barrier and the clinging earthwork. But to Tom,
with action had come perception. Vivid as lightning's flash the whole
sequence of the possible, nay, the seeming inevitable, was borne upon
his mind. He sprang to his feet, dashed down the embankment side. Not
two hundred yards below the reservoir some houses stood darkling in the
night, their inmates locked in sleep. With fist and stick Tom hammered
at the door, thrust his stick, his fist through the windows of the
bottom room, where oft the turn-up bed was stretched.
"Rouse ye, rouse ye!" he cried. "The reservoir! Flee for your lives!"
Down to the Co-op Mill he dashed, racing as sure only as those do speed
who know that Death follows hard upon their heels, and ever as he sped
and passed some silent, lowly cot he paused a breathing space to rend
the midnight silence with wild, yet wilder cry, "The flood! The flood!
Haste ye, save yourselves." He reached the gates of his own mill, dashed
to the corner where Jack still slept in dreamless sleep. He kicked his
prostrate form, he shook him, dragged him to his feet.
"Don yo'r breeches. Here's yo'r' clogs. Haste, man! Bilberry's brust.
Damn yo' wakken. Ar't deead?"
In that time of frenzied haste the language of his childhood came back
to his lips.
Then as Jack, half awake, bewildered, donned his nether garments with
but one idea, that Co-op Mill was on fire, Tom rushed to the stable
where their one horse was housed. He threw a halter over its head; there
was no time, no need for saddle. Jack had followed, thrusting his arms
into his coat sleeves as he came. Tom sprang to the horse's back. The
gate still opened wide.
"Clutch mi leg, Jack, an' stick to me an' yell wi' all thi might."
Tom's first thought had not been of Ben or his household; but gratitude,
duty alike, made them his first care. He must reach Ben at any cost. The
horse, urged by Tom's prodding heels and by the sticks that beat upon
its flanks, galloped down the hill. Jack could not keep pace; panting,
gasping, clinging, he stumbled and fell.
"Make for Ben Garside's," shouted Tom, and was swallowed up in the
night, the horse's hoof beating the rain washed road with dull thuds,
its heavy pants audible afar.
It was one o'clock and after when Tom made Ben's cottage He thundered at
the door, and in a marvellously short time that seemed eternity to Tom,
the upper window was raised, and Ben's capped head thrust forth.
"Th' pub's lower dahn, tha' druffen fooil," said Ben's voice drowsily.
"Open, Ben, open for God's sake. Th' embankment's burst at Bilberry."
But ere Ben had ceased to gape out of the lattice, Hannah, in her
petticoat, had run down the slender, narrow stairs, and unbolted the
door.
"Quick, quick, where's Lucy? Wakken her! Don yo', Hannah. Ben, Ben,
haste thee, man. Oh, here's Jack; that's reight lad, aw feart tha'd be
longer."
Lucy, pale, trembling, but calm, had come down, part dressed.
"Ar't sure, Tom?" asked Ben.
"It's giving bi inches, it cannot howd. What shall we do? Oh! What shall
we do?"
"Mak' for th' hills, for sure," gasped Jack, as he drew deep draughts of
breath.
Then Tom felt a quiet hand upon his own, and Lucy by his side drew him
part aloof.
"There's Dorothy lower down," she whispered, "and if flood come, oh! Woe
is me for all at Wilberlee. Hark! the alarm is spread. Race to
Wilberlee; and Tom! kiss me, it may be good-bye."
Tom kissed the tremulous lips raised to his. "God keep you, Lucy, God
keep us all. I cannot leave you."
But Hannah, too, had thought of Wilberlee. "There's Dorothy. Yo' mun
give th' alarm at Wilberlee."
"And you?" asked Tom: but even as he asked he had turned to the door
where the horse, all untethered, stood.
"Ben an' me 'll manage," said jack. "Up wi' thee, Tom. By gosh! hark to
'em screechin' up the valley."
Aye, aye, the warning cries had been heard and heeded, and as Tom wrung
Ben's hand and vaulted to patient Bess's back the wind bore to his ears
the startled cry, "The flood! The flood! It's come at last," and as the
mare, spinning cobbles and pebbles behind its clattering feet, galloping
as though the foul fiend pursued, dashed past farm and mill and house
Tom cried loud and ever tender, "Oh, rouse yo', good folk, rouse yo'.
Bilberry's on yo'. The bank's brust," and the small-paned windows were
raised with quick grasp from within, and startled faces with widening
eyes peered forth into the night, and still Tom raised the cry, now
hoarse, now shrill, in voice that almost failed. "The flood, the flood!"
And loud and louder still behind him grew the cries, deep toned of men,
anguished shrill of women, wailing tones of children roused from cradle
and from cot. The sleepy valley behind him slept no more. It had roused
to panic, to the sudden apprehension of ravage, ruin, death. Whither
flee? How save the little hoarded wealth; how bear the infirm mother,
who by inglenook declined daily to her grave cheered by the babbling
prattle of her daughter's bairns; how save the bairns themselves! And
even as Tom rode the cries behind him swelled in volume till they fell
upon his ears as a hoarse roar, broken by shrill and piercing shriek,
and if his ears betrayed him not, above the din of human voice he heard
the growl of gathered waters loosed. No use to look behind, the
darkening skies veiled the sight. Thank God! Here is Wilberlee. Well Tom
knew the entrance to the yard. Pray God the gate yielded to his thrust!
It did. By there, through the yard, was the shortest cut to the house.
He swung from the back of the beast, now blown and trembling. The panic
had seized upon it. Grasping its mane Tom led it through the yard, round
the mill gable. Here the noises from above were broken by the mill's
flank and hushed. Not a light shone through the windows of the house.
All was silent within, but at the garden foot the river roared, and Tom
in the dim light saw that on its foaming breast it bore objects,
strange, hideous, torn from the fields, floating stacks of hay,
ponderous engines and machines, the dark outline of animals swept
quickly by.
"Oh! rouse yo'! rouse yo'!" shrieked Tom. He tore a boulder from a
rockery by, and with it crashed at the stout outer door. It shook and
groaned but yielded not. Tom remembered that the window of the
sitting-room or drawing-room came to within a foot's step from the
ground. It was a moment's work to dash the window open with his feet,
and Tom amid the falling of the glass and the creaking crash of
wood-work was within the dark room, his clothes rent, his face
scratched, his hands bleeding. There were sounds above of awakening
life. Tom sprung to the foot of the passage stairs, finding the inner
door he knew not how. "Wake ye, wake ye," he cried hoarsely.
Then a light glimmered above, on the landing. It was Jabez Tinker in his
dressing gown. A candle was in his hand that he shaded from the upward
current.
"Thank God, yo're up," shouted Tom, bounding up the steps. "Dress yo',
quick. Rouse the house. Bilberry's burst. Oh! hark yo'."
Some building higher up the river had fallen with a groan into the
stream and frantic cries rent the leaden skies mingling with the crash
of stone and iron and stout timbers torn like mere sprigs.
Suddenly from the well of darkness shone the gleam of a lanthorn. It was
impossible to see who held it. Mr. Tinker cried out:
"Who's that?"
"It's me, Sergeant Ramsden," said a calm, stentorian voice. "Glad you're
up, sir. Time to flit. Had to wade here. Where's Betty?"
"I'm here, George; but yo' munnot think o' coming up till aw've med
mysen some bit like."
But the tramp of the sergeant was on the stairs already. His was a
welcome presence. The hurry and agitation of the past hour had told on
Tom. He felt sorely the need of help. Mr. Tinker seemed paralysed not so
much from fear as the sudden waking from sleep to stand face to face
with what perils none could tell. Betty clung to her constable, but he
was probably used to being clung to for protection by the weaker sex.
"Where's Peggy?" asked Tom.
"Gone to Harrogate to fetch aunt home."
It was Dorothy who spoke. She had partially dressed, but her long,
curling, beautiful glossy hair fell like a veil upon her shoulders to
her waist she was pale and anxious, but she retained a great measure of
composure. She had drawn to her uncle's side but her eyes were on Tom.
"Are we safe here?" asked Mr. Tinker. "Is there any chance of my being
able to get across the yard to the office?"
"Can't be done, sir," said the Sergeant, touching his high hat as well
as he could with the hand that held the lanthorn. His other arm
supported Betty.
"The garden's three feet deep and more. Same in mill yard, no doubt, and
rising every second; had to wade in. Glad to find window broken down."
There was a sudden shriek from Betty. Through the door of the parlour
that opened into the passage at the stair feet came a torrent of water
nigh as high as the doorway itself. It flooded the passage, and, step by
step, quicker than a man could mount them, scaled the staircase to the
landing on which they stood. Small articles of furniture and ornaments
were borne from the room, tossing and colliding as if in a grotesque
dance.
"Make for the attic," said Mr. Tinker, and led the way, followed by the
women. Tom was hard upon them. The sergeant followed with an agile
departure from his professional staidness, deliberation, and dignity of
gait that only stress of circumstances constrained. If a withering
glance could have arrested it the rapidly rising, gaining flood would
have stayed its inroad.
The attic was a low, barely furnished room, immediately under the roof.
It was lighted from above by a thick sky-window. It held two low beds of
plain deal--the chaste couches of Betty and Peggy. There were two
chests of drawers, one doubtless sacred to each maid. There were two
chairs, a washstand, a portrait of the sergeant, staff-in-hand, and the
like of a soldier over which Peggy was supposed to weep out her heart in
moments of despondency.
"I doubt we're not out of it here," whispered the sergeant to Tom. He
cast his light through the doorway. "See, the water mounts quickly.
'Twill be on us, and we mun drown like rats in a hole."
"Can you swim?" asked Tom, under his breath.
The sergeant nodded.
"Doff your boots; keep your cloak and breeches nothing else. Get into
that corner. Give me the light. Don't let them see you doff. They're
fleyed enough."
There was no time even for suspense. The water was already in the attic.
Tom dragged a bed beneath the skylight and with a blow from his stick
shivered the thick glass.
"Yo' mun get through th' skylight, Ramsden," he bawled. The turmoil of
the waters drowned all lower speech. "I'll pass t'others to you."
Ramsden nodded. The habit of discipline is invaluable in the hour of
emergency. Tom had taken the command even in his old master's house, and
it seemed natural that he should order and others obey.
With difficulty he twisted the portly constable through the aperture. It
was a tight squeeze.
"Tear up some of the slates. Widen th' hole," shouted Tom, as he dragged
a trunk to the top of the bed to stand on. "Now Dorothy," he whispered,
"you next."
"No, uncle," she said, drawing back. This was no hour for ceremony. Tom
almost lifted Mr. Tinker bodily on to the trunk, the sergeant from above
seized his wrists, and Tom, with a mighty heave, hoisted him aloft.
"Now you, Betty," said Dorothy.
It was well for Betty the stone slabs had been wrenched with little
difficulty from the sounding lines of the aperture. She was stout and
heavy as seemeth a cook, and if there had not been strong braced thighs
on the stack, and arms like iron beneath her, Betty would have slept
that morn her last sleep on earth in the tiny attic she had known so
long.
"Now, Dorothy," said Tom. She was already on the chest. He pressed her
hand tenderly as she turned her face towards the gap through which the
Sergeant had passed. Tom lifted her through almost bodily. "Come you,
now," she said as she left his arms.
"Here, sergeant," bawled Tom, "take these blankets and things. It'll be
cold up there." And Tom hastily passed blankets, sheets, and
counterpanes through the window. Then those above heard him tearing at
the bedsteads like one possessed. He rove them asunder by main force and
passed the sections to the sergeant. Then springing on to the chest he
thrust his arms to either side of the roof, and with a thrust of the
feet that sent the box flying, forced and prised himself to the roof.
They could see little even by the light which the constable still
retained. They were sure only that Wilberlee House was all but
submerged, and that the devouring waters as they swept by them crawled
up the sloping roof. From the thick darkness came shouts and wails and
cries, and the thundering crash of falling buildings. By the lanthorn's
glare and the casual glimpsing of the moon they saw, as they strained
their visions to pierce the black encircling pall, what looked like huge
pieces of machinery that broke from the tomb of the night before their
eyes and then were gone again. More than once, almost level with the
house eaves, a face of a man or woman, a white, pallid, drawn face, with
eyes distended in speechless horror, would flash above the waters and
then be borne away like chaff in a mighty blast, or the long white
trailing of a woman's dress would shoot beneath their feet, come and go
ere they realised it was come. And ever and anon those awful, thrilling,
sickening cries, whose dread import they but too surely guessed. The
night was bitter cold. They clung together, crouching low, their
absorbing thought--would the house stand the shock of those pounding
waters, would the dinning flood go on for ever?
Tom only had been engaged. Getting what hold he could by the low chimney
of the house, he fastened together with the cording of the beds the
disjointed laths, making a very passable raft. This he lowered to the
verge of the roof. It might be needed, who might say? The very house
seemed to shake under them as they crouched and waited in agonised
suspense. Had it been less stoutly built it must ere this have been
swept bodily away as rows upon rows of houses that night of doom were
swept away by the devouring torrent--many bearing with them husband,
wife and child, scarce roused from sleep ere the flood clasped them in
the embrace of death.
And still the surging water rose higher and higher, now creeping slowly
up the thatch, now sweeping swiftly upwards and now falling as suddenly
for a foot or two, giving a momentary hope the violence of the storm was
over--but only to surge nearer and nearer to those who now clung to the
ridge of the arched roof. Tom contrived to crawl cautiously to Mr.
Tinker's side. With difficulty making the dazed man hear him above the
roar of the waters and the dinn that stunned their sense, Tom made him
understand that they must now trust to the frail raft he had improvised.
"It's our only chance, sir. The bindings of the roof are giving. And
look, look!"
Tom pointed across the mill-yard. The moon was clear of the clouds, and
for a few moments the scene of desolation and the waste of waters might
be seen by the silver light.
Mr. Tinker's gaze followed the direction of the outstretched arms.
Across the yard towered the long mill chimney, and it was rocking and
swaying like a drunken man. There was not a moment to be lost. The
sergeant and Tom slipped the raft on to the bosom of the racing flood.
It was all but torn from their grasp.
"Get you on it with the women," cried Tom. Betty was with difficulty
placed upon the frail support. Mr. Tinker followed her. The sergeant,
obedient to Tom's gesture, sprang upon it.
"Now, Dorothy, jump for your life"; but even as the words left his lips,
the bark was torn from his grasp. There was a shriek of terror from
those aboard, and Ramsden cried, "The chimney. Oh! God! It's falling!"
Tom breathed a prayer.
"It's you and me for it, Dorothy. Can you trust me?" He passed his arm
around her; she pressed her lips to his, and Tom, with his almost
unconscious charge, leaped far out into the centre of the headlong
current. And even as he leaped the great chimney-stack, its base
destroyed, swayed towards the house, and in one unbroken mass fell upon
the roof that had been their refuge, and Tom and Dorothy were lost in
the crested billows that leaped with angry roar to meet the very skies.