Rudder Grange Part 8

"Get up! Come out of that! Open the door! The old boat's turning over!"

My heart fell within me, but I clutched Euphemia. I said no word, and she simply screamed. I dragged her over the floor, sometimes in the water and sometimes out of it. I got the dining-room door open and set her on the stairs. They were in a topsy-turvy condition, but they were dry. I found a lantern which hung on a nail, with a match-box under it, and I struck a light. Then I scrambled back and brought her some clothes.

All this time the boarder was yelling and pounding at the door. When Euphemia was ready I opened the door and took her out.

"You go dress yourself;" said the boarder. "I'll hold her here until you come back."

I left her and found my clothes (which, chair and all, had tumbled against the foot of the bed and so had not gone into the water), and soon reappeared on deck. The wind was blowing strongly, but it did not now seem to be very cold. The deck reminded me of the gang-plank of a Harlem steamboat at low tide. It was inclined at an angle of more than forty-five degrees, I am sure. There was light enough for us to see about us, but the scene and all the dreadful circ.u.mstances made me feel the most intense desire to wake up and find it all a dream. There was no doubt, however, about the boarder being wide awake.

"Now then," said he, "take hold of her on that side and we'll help her over here. You scramble down on that side; it's all dry just there. The boat's turned over toward the water, and I'll lower her down to you.

I'll let a rope over the sides. You can hold on to that as you go down."

I got over the bulwarks and let myself down to the ground. Then the boarder got Euphemia up and slipped her over the side, holding to her hands, and letting her gently down until I could reach her. She said never a word, but screamed at times. I carried her a little way up the sh.o.r.e and set her down. I wanted to take her up to a house near by, where we bought our milk, but she declined to go until we had saved Pomona.

So I went back to the boat, having carefully wrapped up Euphemia, to endeavor to save the girl. I found that the boarder had so arranged the gang-plank that it was possible, without a very great exercise of agility, to pa.s.s from the sh.o.r.e to the boat. When I first saw him, on reaching the shelving deck, he was staggering up the stairs with a dining-room chair and a large framed engraving of Raphael's Dante--an ugly picture, but full of true feeling; at least so Euphemia always declared, though I am not quite sure that I know what she meant.

"Where is Pomona?" I said, endeavoring to stand on the hill-side of the deck.

"I don't know," said he, "but we must get the things out. The tide's rising and the wind's getting up. The boat will go over before we know it."

"But we must find the girl," I said. "She can't be left to drown."

"I don't think it would matter much," said he, getting over the side of the boat with his awkward load. "She would be of about as much use drowned as any other way. If it hadn't been for that hole she cut in the side of the boat, this would never have happened."

"You don't think it was that!" I said, holding the picture and the chair while he let himself down to the gang-plank.

"Yes, it was," he replied. "The tide's very high, and the water got over that hole and rushed in. The water and the wind will finish this old craft before very long."

And then he took his load from me and dashed down the gang-plank. I went below to look for Pomona. The lantern still hung on the nail, and I took it down and went into the kitchen. There was Pomona, dressed, and with her hat on, quietly packing some things in a basket.

"Come, hurry out of this," I cried. "Don't you know that this house--this boat, I mean, is a wreck?"

"Yes, sma'am--sir, I mean--I know it, and I suppose we shall soon be at the mercy of the waves."

"Well, then, go as quickly as you can. What are you putting in that basket?"

"Food," she said. "We may need it."

I took her by the shoulder and hurried her on deck, over the bulwark, down the gang-plank, and so on to the place where I had left Euphemia.

I found the dear girl there, quiet and collected, all up in a little bunch, to shield herself from the wind. I wasted no time, but hurried the two women over to the house of our milk-merchant. There, with some difficulty, I roused the good woman, and after seeing Euphemia and Pomona safely in the house, I left them to tell the tale, and ran back to the boat.

The boarder was working like a Trojan. He had already a pile of our furniture on the beach.

I set about helping him, and for an hour we labored at this hasty and toilsome moving. It was indeed a toilsome business. The floors were shelving, the stairs leaned over sideways, ever so far, and the gang-plank was desperately short and steep.

Still, we saved quite a number of household articles. Some things we broke and some we forgot, and some things were too big to move in this way; but we did very well, considering the circ.u.mstances.

The wind roared, the tide rose, and the boat groaned and creaked. We were in the kitchen, trying to take the stove apart (the boarder was sure we could carry it up, if we could get the pipe out and the legs and doors off), when we heard a crash. We rushed on deck and found that the garden had fallen in! Making our way as well as we could toward the gaping rent in the deck, we saw that the turnip-bed had gone down bodily into the boarder's room. He did not hesitate, but scrambled down his narrow stairs. I followed him. He struck a match that he had in his pocket, and lighted a little lantern that hung under the stairs. His room was a perfect rubbish heap. The floor, bed, chairs, pitcher, basin--everything was covered or filled with garden mold and turnips.

Never did I behold such a scene. He stood in the midst of it, holding his lantern high above his head. At length he spoke.

"If we had time," he said, "we might come down here and pick out a lot of turnips."

"But how about your furniture?" I exclaimed.

"Oh, that's ruined!" he replied.

So we did not attempt to save any of it, but we got hold of his trunk and carried that on sh.o.r.e.

When we returned, we found that the water was pouring through his part.i.tion, making the room a lake of mud. And, as the water was rising rapidly below, and the boat was keeling over more and more, we thought it was time to leave, and we left.

It would not do to go far away from our possessions, which were piled up in a sad-looking heap on the sh.o.r.e; and so, after I had gone over to the milk-woman's to a.s.sure Euphemia of our safety, the boarder and I pa.s.sed the rest of the night--there was not much of it left--in walking up and down the beach smoking some cigars which he fortunately had in his pocket.

In the morning I took Euphemia to the hotel, about a mile away--and arranged for the storage of our furniture there, until we could find another habitation. This habitation, we determined, was to be in a substantial house, or part of a house, which should not be affected by the tides.

During the morning the removal of our effects was successfully accomplished, and our boarder went to town to look for a furnished room.

He had nothing but his trunk to take to it.

In the afternoon I left Euphemia at the hotel, where she was taking a nap (she certainly needed it, for she had spent the night in a wooden rocking-chair at the milk-woman's), and I strolled down to the river to take a last look at the remains of old Rudder Grange.

I felt sadly enough as I walked along the well-worn path to the ca.n.a.l-boat, and thought how it had been worn by my feet more than any other's, and how gladly I had walked that way, so often during that delightful summer. I forgot all that had been disagreeable, and thought only of the happy times we had had.

It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, and the wind had entirely died away. When I came within sight of our old home, it presented a doleful appearance. The bow had drifted out into the river, and was almost entirely under water. The stern stuck up in a mournful and ridiculous manner, with its keel, instead of its broadside, presented to the view of persons on the sh.o.r.e. As I neared the boat I heard a voice. I stopped and listened. There was no one in sight. Could the sounds come from the boat? I concluded that it must be so, and I walked up closer. Then I heard distinctly the words:

"He grasp ed her by the thro at and yell ed, swear to me thou nev er wilt re veal my se cret, or thy hot heart's blood shall stain this mar bel fib or; she gave one gry vy ous gasp and--"

It was Pomona!

Doubtless she had climbed up the stern of the boat and had descended into the depths of the wreck to rescue her beloved book, the reading of which had so long been interrupted by my harsh decrees. Could I break in on this one hour of rapture? I had not the heart to do it, and as I slowly moved away, there came to me the last words that I ever heard from Rudder Grange:

"And with one wild shry ik to heav en her heart's blo od spat ter ed that prynce ly home of woe--"

CHAPTER VI. THE NEW RUDDER GRANGE.

I have before given an account of the difficulties we encountered when we started out house-hunting, and it was this doleful experience which made Euphemia declare that before we set out on a second search for a residence, we should know exactly what we wanted.

To do this, we must know how other people live, we must examine into the advantages and disadvantages of the various methods of housekeeping, and make up our minds on the subject.

When we came to this conclusion we were in a city boarding-house, and were entirely satisfied that this style of living did not suit us at all.

At this juncture I received a letter from the gentleman who had boarded with us on the ca.n.a.l-boat. Shortly after leaving us the previous fall, he had married a widow lady with two children, and was now keeping house in a French flat in the upper part of the city. We had called upon the happy couple soon after their marriage, and the letter, now received, contained an invitation for us to come and dine, and spend the night.

"We'll go," said Euphemia. "There's nothing I want so much as to see how people keep house in a French flat. Perhaps we'll like it. And I must see those children." So we went.

The house, as Euphemia remarked, was anything but flat. It was very tall indeed--the tallest house in the neighborhood. We entered the vestibule, the outer door being open, and beheld, on one side of us, a row of bell-handles. Above each of these handles was the mouth of a speaking-tube, and above each of these, a little glazed frame containing a visiting-card.