The Settlers at Home Part 4

"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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s. 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 n.o.body 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 th.o.r.n.y bramble, not minding its p.r.i.c.king 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 ash.o.r.e 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 th.o.r.n.y 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."