The MS. in a Red Box Part 9

To this I agreed, and, after some further talk, I turned to go. As I stepped into the water at the foot of the stairs, she called to me from the landing--

"Oh, Frank, don't forget milk for the children."

I looked up, and saw her face burning. "I will not forget," I answered, and out I strode with the music lingering in my ears.

Old men and women still tell the tale of the great flood, and part of the tale is how the "young squire" of Temple did feats of rowing, lifting, and carrying in helping the folk. If I was bold and active beyond the ordinary on that day, and I think I was, the secret is that I had heard my name for the first time from the lips of my love, and seen her blush to use it.

It is no affair of mine to repeat the chimney-corner story. It suffices to say that I and Luke and a dozen willing fellows worked our hardest until dark, visiting every farmstead and every hovel which remained standing on the lower levels.

A score cottages right on the bank of the river, occupied by labourers and marshmen and their families, had been swept clean away, with what destruction of life could not then be known. The farmers' losses were terribly heavy. The havoc done among horses and cattle was considerable, and hundreds of swine and thousands of sheep had been drowned. Stacks were overthrown and spoiled, and the standing crops were ruined.

How the men cursed the Dutch! Their threats of vengeance made me wish that Mistress Goel and her father were safely out of Crowle. For our Islonians are not fellows who ease their minds with a curse, and then think no more of it, but of that slow, stubborn kind, which smoulders first and does not flame until the end. I a.s.sured them that their "Solicitor" would demand compensation for their losses. I argued that this disaster might have so much good in it as to justify my father's resistance to the Vermuijden scheme, and oblige the King and his advisers to hear reason. But I met with bitter and scornful laughter for the most part.

One man said, "'Taint no sort of use to talk so, Mester Frank. Your father is a real gentleman, but he's no match for the Dutch devils. We didn't ought to ha' listened to his peaceable kind of discoursing.

Squire Portington's is the way to deal with robbers and murderers like Vermuijden and his gang."

Pretty nearly all were of the same mind, and I returned to the vicarage dispirited and apprehensive, and so weary and spent and heavy with sleep, that I crept off and tumbled into bed, too tired even to talk with Mistress Goel.

Most unexpectedly, the vicar requested me to remain a few days at his house. Hitherto, we had had little to say to each other; he never had much to say to any one. I had disliked him from my early childhood, when I got the impression that he was bound in parchment like one of his folios, and that the back of his head had been chopped off. His days were pa.s.sed among those folios, and Mr. Butharwick spoke with respect of his learning, but what good came of it I never knew. He preached sermons of an inordinate length, and totally incomprehensible to me, and, as I judged, to his paris.h.i.+oners generally, who composed themselves for slumber when they heard the text. My aunt attended to all the affairs of the parish, and always inspected the parson before he left the house, to see that he was decently clad, and had his handkerchief in his pocket.

The calamitous flood aroused him to the everyday life around him, not all at once, but slowly. He entered into the sorrows of his bereaved paris.h.i.+oners especially, of whom there were many. One Coggan, a small farmer, had been found dead in the water at the foot of a ladder descending from his bedroom. Another man, a somewhat drunken fellow, had been overtaken by the flood, while sleeping off his drink on the kitchen floor. An old man, whose people had left him alone for the night, had been caught and overwhelmed in the act of opening his door, apparently. The child of Ducker, the blacksmith, had been ailing for a day or two, but on the night of the inundation had fallen asleep on a couch, and slept so peacefully that the mother would not disturb its slumber, but covered it up as it lay, and went to bed. She found it drowned in the morning. Besides these cases in the town itself, numerous bodies were recovered in the neighbourhood of the cottages on the banks of the Don and elsewhere. In these circ.u.mstances, many appeals were made to the vicar for guidance, help, and consolation.

The s.e.xton lost his wits, poor man, and there were difficulties in making preparation for the decent interment of so many bodies, as well as difficulties as to who would guarantee payment for this and that.

We were hard put to it to find a messenger to go for the coroner, every man's hands were so full of his own, or his master's business.

Consequently, the vicar impressed me into service, and gave everything into my charge. I must do him the justice to acknowledge that he was diligent in attending to his spiritual duties, and generous with his purse. The painful and somewhat horrible details are no necessary part of my narrative, and so I leave them; but, as may be supposed, I was fully occupied for several days.

There was an hour every evening which made up, and more than made up, for all the weariness and trouble of the day, when Mistress Goel talked awhile with me, or sang to me. Our talk was mainly of the one engrossing subject, and there could be no quiet, private chat at such a time; but to see her and to hear her voice was enough to make me happy for the present.

Luke made me somewhat uneasy by telling me that he had overheard conversation at the White Hart, and elsewhere, to the effect that Doctor and Mistress Goel had come over to Crowle "to charm the water."

Dame Hind had had much to say of the certainty of their being in commerce with the devil, and some of her guests swore to put an end to the witches at the first opportunity. Although I did not think these threats very serious, and had perfect confidence in my own ability to protect my friends, being in high favour with the Crowle folk, I contrived to restrain them from going beyond the vicarage grounds, except when I could accompany them. Luke was exceedingly afraid, but as he had always a keen nose for scent of danger, his fears did not excite mine.

On the third evening of my stay, Sheffield was announced. He met me without a trace of confusion.

"Ha, Vavasour!" he said. "Give you joy of coming to life again."

"Thanks--much thanks," I replied.

"Coming to life again!" cried my aunt. "What do you mean, my lord?"

"Has he told you nothing? When last I saw him, on the night of the thunderstorm, he was struck by lightning."

"Struck by lightning!" my aunt echoed.

"Yes; I overtook him on the road, and we got into some sort of quarrel, about what I don't remember, for, to confess the truth, I was too drunk. We were riding side by side, jabbering angrily, when I saw a ball of fire flas.h.i.+ng down. It struck Vavasour, and he fell from his horse. I am ashamed to say that I was so dazed and terrified that I rode off as fast as I could, and left him to his fate."

Being pressed to give my account, I said, "I did not see the flash which knocked me down, and I can tell you no more, except that I found myself in bed next morning, little the worse."

My aunt gave me a scolding (with tears in her eyes) for my reticence, and was touchingly grateful to Sheffield for informing her of the peril I had been in. Doctor Goel's interest was in the meteor, and he asked so many questions about the size and shape and colour of it, the degree of its brightness, the length of time it was visible, and so forth, that Sheffield got himself into a coil of contradictions, and then excused them on the ground that he was very drunk at the time.

"By Bacchus," said the doctor, "you must have been."

One person kept silence, but her bright eyes were observant of Sheffield and me. Doctor Goel turned to me, and endeavoured to extract some account of my feelings, but I stuck to it that I could tell nothing more. Sheffield took himself off, declining my aunt's invitation to stay supper.

Mistress Goel hinted a desire for a walk, and I, being eager enough, stood ready to accompany her. While she put on her hat and wrap, I waited in the hall, and Luke, who was never far from my elbow at this time, came to me with my pistols.

"You may need 'em," said he, in a low voice. "I've seen some ugly fellows about this evening."

I laughed, but took them, and the belt which Luke had not forgotten, and armed myself besides with a tough ash-stick, which I reckoned the best weapon a man could carry.

We took the path winding upward through the wood to Crown Hill, the moon, now nearly full, s.h.i.+ning intermittently through scudding clouds into our faces.

"I want to ask about the attempt made on your life the other evening,"

my companion said abruptly. "Oh!" she continued, "I know the tale about a thunderbolt is altogether false. You were struck down from behind, and left for dead. Your a.s.sailant cannot understand how it is you are alive, so he makes up a story as a defence for himself, perhaps, or, more probably, to provoke you to say something which may clear up what is mysterious to him. And you saw the design, and would not betray the secret."

"This is wizardry!" I said, staring.

"Oh dear, no! it is ordinary woman's wit, enlightened by the looks which pa.s.sed between you and your enemy."

I granted that she had rightly discerned, but said nothing of what followed the knock-down blow.

"You are determined to keep secret the manner of your rescue?" she asked.

"At present, yes," I answered.

"Doubtless you have good reason. But there is another matter on which I wished to speak with you. Do you allow that there is such a virtue as prudence? If so, is it prudent to expose yourself to an enemy--a powerful, crafty, unscrupulous enemy?"

Then I burst out, "Do you bid me run away from him? Because----"

"Stay one moment," said she. "Surely prudent avoidance and cowardly flight are not the same thing."

"There is too much of a family likeness for me to distinguish between them," said I.

"So I feared," she answered. "What is the noise we hear?"

It was the noise of a crowd--hurrying feet, hoa.r.s.e shouts. It came rapidly near. The mob was coming up the hill. Now I could hear distinctly "foreign witch," "Dutch devil," and other cries of a fouler kind. Unmistakably we were pursued. On the crest of the hill stood an old windmill, which might shelter us, and thither I hurried Mistress Goel. The door was padlocked, but one strong kick crashed it open.

Pus.h.i.+ng my companion inside, I took up the door, laid it across the entrance, dragged a few sacks of corn against it, and had a tolerable barricade; not a moment too soon, for the mob was upon us, with a yell of disappointed rage at sight of the obstacle in their way.

"Can you load a pistol?" I asked Mistress Goel.

"Yes," she answered.

I detached powder-horn and shot-bag from my belt, and pa.s.sed them to her.

"I will throw my pistol into your lap, if I have to fire; reload it and give it to me, keeping well behind me," I ordered.

By this time the crowd had gathered in front of the mill. Luckily we were in shadow, and the moonlight was full on them. For half a minute they halted, and a murmur of talk among the leaders was the only sound.

Then one of them stepped forward.

"One stride nearer, and I fire," I said quietly.