The Settlers at Home Part 5

"Perhaps Stephen is here,--in the wood," cried Mildred, in terror. "I wish this water would make haste and run away, and let us get home."

"It cannot run faster than it does. Look how the waves dash along!

That is the worst of it:--it shows what a quant.i.ty there is, where this came from. But I don't believe Stephen is here. I have a good mind to ask Roger, and make him tell me."

"No, don't, Oliver! Stephen may be drowned. Do not put him in mind."

"Why, you see he does not care for anything. He is teasing some live thing at this minute,--there, on the ground."

Oliver himself forgot everything but the live animals before his eyes, when he saw how many there were under the trees. The gra.s.s was swarming with mice, moles, and small snakes; while rabbits c.o.c.ked up their little white tails, in all directions, and partridges flew out of every bush, and hares started from every hollow that the boy looked into.

"Ah soaked out of their holes;--don't know what to do with themselves;-- fine sport for those that have a mind to it," said Roger, as he lay on the ground, pulling back a little mouse by its long tail, as often as it tried to run away.

"You have no mind for sport to-day, I suppose, Roger. I should not think anybody has."

"I don't know;--I'm rarely hungry," said the boy.

"So were we; but we forgot it again. Father is in the mill there..."

"You need not tell me that. Don't I see him?"

"But we think he is looking out for Stephen."

"He won't find him," said Roger, in a very low voice; so low that Oliver was not sure what he said.

"He is not here on the hill, then, Roger?"

"On the hill,--no! I don't know where he is, nor the woman either. I suppose they are drowned, as I was, nearly. If they did not swim as I did, they must be drowned: and they could hardly do that, as I had the dog."

The children looked at each other; and their looks told that they thought Roger was shocked and sorry, though he tried not to appear so.

"There might have been a boat, perhaps, out on the carr. Don't you think the country-people in the hills would get out boats when they saw the flood spreading?"

"Boats, no! The hill-people have not above three boats among them all.

There are about three near the ponds; and they are like nut-sh.e.l.ls. How should any boat live in such a flood as that? Why, that flood would sweep a s.h.i.+p out to sea in a minute. You need not think about boats, I can tell you."

"But won't anybody send a boat for us?" inquired Mildred, who had drawn near to listen. "If they don't send a boat, and the flood goes on, what are we to do? We can't live here, with nothing to eat, and no beds, and no shelter, if it should rain."

"Are you now beginning to cry about that? Are you now beginning to find that out, after all this time?" said Roger, contemptuously.

"I thought we should get away," sobbed the little girl. "I thought a boat or something would come."

"A pretty silly thing you must be!" exclaimed Roger.

"If she is silly, I am silly too," declared Oliver. "I am not sure that it is silly to look for a boat. There are plenty out on the coast there."

"They are all dashed to pieces long ago," decided Roger. "And they that let in the flood will take good care you don't get out of it,--you, and your outlanders. It is all along of you that I am in this sc.r.a.pe. But it was shameful of them not to give us notice;--it was too bad to catch us in the same trap with you. If uncle is drowned, and I ever get out alive, I will be revenged on them."

Mildred stopped crying, as well as she could, to listen; but she felt like Oliver when he said,--

"I don't know a word of what you mean."

"I dare say not. You foreigners never know anything like other people."

"But won't you tell us? Who made this flood?"

"To be sure, you weren't meant to know this. It would not have done to show you the way out of the trap. Why--the Parliament Committee at Lincoln ordered the Snow-sewer sluice to be pulled up to-day, to drown the king's lands, and get rid of his tenants. It will be as good as a battle gained to them."

The children were aghast at the wickedness of this deed. They would not believe it. It would have been tyrannical and cruel to have obliged the settlers, who were not interested in a quarrel between the king of England and his people, to enlist, and be shot down in war. They would have complained of this as tyrannical and cruel. But when they were living in peace and quiet on their farms, paying their rents, and inclined to show good-will to everybody, to pull up the flood-gates, and let in the sea and the rivers to drown them because they lived in the king's lands, was a cruelty too dreadful to be believed. Oliver and Mildred did not believe it. They were sure their father would not believe it; and that their mother, if ever she should return to her home and family, would bring a very different account--that the whole misfortune would turn out to be accidental. So they felt a.s.sured: but the fact was as Roger had said. The Snow-sewer sluice had been pulled up, by the orders of the Committee of the Parliament, then sitting at Lincoln: and it was done to destroy the king's new lands, and deprive him of the support of his tenants. The jealous country-people round hoped also that it would prevent foreigners from coming to live in England, however much they might want such a refuge.

Some of the sufferers knew how their misfortune happened. Others might be thankful that they did not; for the thought of the malice of their enemies must have been more bitter than the fear of ruin and death.

CHAPTER FOUR.

A HUNGRY DAY.

"We shall see what father does," was still the consolation with which Oliver kept down his sister's fears. He had such confidence in his father's knowing what was best to be done on all occasions, that he felt they had only to watch him, and imitate whatever he might attempt. They remained quiet on the island now, hungry and tired as they were, because he remained in the mill, and seemed to expect the water to subside. The most fearful thought was what they were to do after dark, if they should not get home before that. They supposed, at last, that their father was thinking of this too; for he began to move about, when the sun was near setting, more than he had done all the afternoon.

They saw him go carefully down into the stream, and proceed cautiously for some way--till the water was up to his chin. Then he was buffeted about so terribly that Mildred could not bear to look. Both Oliver and Roger were sure, by what he ventured, and by the way he pulled himself back at last to the steps, that he had tied himself by the rope they had seen him measure. It was certainly too short for any good purpose; for he had to go back, having only wetted himself to the skin. They saw this by the yellow light from the west which shone upon the water. In a few minutes they could distinguish him no longer, though the mill stood up black against the sky, and in the midst of the gleaming flood.

"Father will be wet, and so cold all night!" said Mildred, crying.

"If I could only swim," exclaimed Oliver, "I would get over to him somehow, and carry a rope from the house. I am sure there must be a rope long enough somewhere about the yard. If I could only swim, I would get to him."

"That you wouldn't," said Roger. "Your father can swim; and why does not he? Because n.o.body could swim across that stream. It is a torrent.

It would carry any stout man out over the carr; and you would be no better than a twig in the middle of it."

"I am afraid now this torrent will not slacken," said Oliver, thoughtfully. "I am afraid there is some hollow near which will keep up the current."

"What do you mean by that?"

"They say in Holland, where they have floods sometimes, that when water flows into a hollow, it gets out in a current, and keeps it up for some way. Oh! The quarry!" he cried, with sudden recollection. "Mildred, let us go, and look what is doing on that side before it is dark."

They ran round the hill; and there they saw indeed that the flood was tumbling in the quarry, like water boiling in a pot. When it rushed out, it carried white earth with it, which made a long streak in the flood, and explained how it was that the stream between the house and the mill was whiter and more muddy than that between their hill and the house. At once it occurred to Roger that the stream between the hill and the house was probably less rapid than the other; and he said so.

Oliver ran back; and so did Mildred, pleased at the bare idea of getting to the house.

Once more arrived opposite the house, they saw a strange sight. The mill no longer stood in its right place. It had moved a good way down towards the carr. Not only that, but it was still moving. It was sailing away like a s.h.i.+p. After the first exclamation, even Roger stood as still as death to watch it. He neither moved nor spoke till the mill was out of sight in the dusk. When Mildred burst into a loud cry, and Oliver threw himself down, hiding his face on the ground, Roger spoke again.

"Be quiet--you must," he said, decidedly, to the little girl. "We must bestir ourselves now, instead of stopping to see what other folks will do."

"Oh, father! Father will be drowned!" cried they.

"You don't know that. If he drifts out to the Humber, which is likely, by the way he is going, some s.h.i.+p may pick him up--or he may light upon some high ground. We can't settle that now, however; and the clear thing is that he wouldn't wish us to starve, whether he drowns or not.

Come, get up, lad!" said he, stirring Oliver with his foot.

"Don't lie there, Oliver; do get up!" begged Mildred.