Read Ebook: Death disarmed of its sting A tribute to the memory of the Hon. Roger Minott Sherman being the discourse preached at his funeral January 2 1845 by Atwater Lyman Hotchkiss

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They ran to the mill three or four times to tell their father that the brown tent was still under the bank in the carr, and that they could see nobody; though the wild-ducks and geese made such a fluttering and noise, now and then, that it seemed as if some one was lurking about the ponds. Often in the course of the morning, too, did Mr Linacre look out of the mill-window, or nod to them from the top of the steps, that they might see that he did not forget them. Meantime, the white smoke curled up from the kitchen chimney, as Ailwin cooked the dinner; and little George's voice and hers were often heard from within, as if they were having some fun together.

The children were very hot, and began to say that they were hungry, and thought dinner-time was near, when they suddenly felt a strong rush of wind from the west. Oliver lost his cap, and was running after it, when both heard a loud shout from their father, and looked up. They had never heard him shout so loud as he now did, bidding them run up the Red-hill that moment. He waved his arm and his cap in that direction, as if he was mad. Mildred scampered up the hill. She did not know why, nor what was the meaning of the rolling, roaring thunder which seemed to convulse the air: but her head was full of Roger; and she thought it was some mischief of his. One part of the Red-hill was very steep, and the ground soft. Her feet slipped on the moss first, and when she had got above the moss, the red earth crumbled; and she went back at every step, till she caught hold of some brambles, and then of the trunk of a tree; so that, trembling and panting, she reached at last the top of the eminence.

When she looked round, she saw a rushing, roaring river where the garden had been, just before. Rough waters were dashing up against the hill on which she stood,--against the house,--and against the mill. She saw the flood spreading, as rapidly as the light at sunrise, over the whole expanse of the Levels. She saw another flood bursting in from the Humber, on the north-east, and meeting that which had just swept by;-- she saw the two floods swallowing up field after field, meadow after meadow, splashing up against every house, and surrounding all, so that the roofs, and the stacks beside them, looked like so many little islands. She saw these things in a moment, but did not heed them till afterwards,--for, where was Oliver?

Oliver was safe, though it was rather a wonder that he was so, considering his care for his cap. Oliver was an orderly boy, accustomed to take great care of his things; and it did not occur to him to let his cap go, when he had to run for his life. He had to part with it, however. He was flying after it, when another shout from his father made him look round; and then he saw the wall of water, as he called it, rolling on directly upon the house. He gave a prodigious spring across the garden ditch, and up the hill-side, and but just escaped; for the wind which immediately preceded the flood blew him down; and it was clinging to the trunk of a tree that saved him, as his sister had been saved just before. As it was, his feet were wet. Oliver panted and trembled like his sister, but he was safe.

Every one was safe. Ailwin appeared at an upper window, exhibiting little George. Mr Linacre stood, with folded arms, in the doorway of his mill; and his wife was on the side of a high hill, far away. The children and their father knew, while the flood was roaring between them, what all were thinking of; and at the same moment, the miller and his boy waved, the one his hat, and the other a green bough, high and joyously over their heads. Little George saw this from the window, and clapped his hands, and jumped, as Ailwin held him on the window-sill.

"Look at Geordie!" cried Mildred. "Do look at him! Don't you think you hear him now?"

This happy mood could not last very long, however, as the waters, instead of going down, were evidently rising every moment. From the first, the flood had been too deep and rapid to allow of the miller crossing from his mill to his house. He was a poor swimmer; and no swimmer, he thought, could have avoided being carried away into the wide marsh, where there was no help. Then, instead of the stream slackening, it rushed more furiously as it rose,--rose first over the wall of the yard, and up to the fourth--fifth--sixth step of the mill-ladder, and then almost into the branches of the apple-trees in the garden.

"I hope you will not mind being hungry, Mildred," said her brother, after a time of silence. "We are not likely to have any dinner to-day, I think."

"I don't mind that, very much," said Mildred, "but how do you think we are to get away, with this great river between us and home?"

"We shall see what father does," said Oliver. "He is further off still, on the other side."

"But what is all this water? When will it go away?"

"I am afraid the embankments have burst. And yet the weather has been fine enough lately. Perhaps the sluices are broken up."

Seeing that Mildred did not understand the more for what he said, he explained--

"You know, all these Levels were watery grounds once; more wet than the carr yonder. Well,--great clay banks were made to keep out the Humber waters, over there, to the north-east, and on the west and north-west yonder, to keep two or three rivers there from overflowing the land. Then several canals and ditches were cut, to drain the land; and there are great gates put up, here and there, to let the waters in and out, as they are wanted. I am afraid those gates are gone, or the clay banks broken down, so that the sea and the rivers are pouring in all the water they have."

"But when will it be over? Will it ever run off again? Shall we ever get home again?"

"I do not know anything about it. We must wait, and watch what father will do. See! What is this coming?"

"A dead horse!" exclaimed Mildred. "Drowned, I suppose. Don't you think so, Oliver?"

"Drowned, of course.--Do you know, Mildred," he continued, after a silence, during which he was looking towards the sheds in the yard, while his sister's eyes were following the body of the horse as it was swept along, now whirled round in an eddy, and now going clear over the hedge into the carr,--"do you know, Mildred," said Oliver, "I think father will be completely ruined by this flood."

"Do you?" said Mildred, who did not quite know what it was to be ruined. "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 grass 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 grass. 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 nobody 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 thorny bramble, not minding its pricking 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 ashore 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.

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