The Revellers

He came to her with hands extended.

“Forgive me, Elsie; I couldn’t help it.”

“You must never, never do such a thing again.”

He had nothing to say.

“Promise!” she cried, but her voice was less emphatic than she imagined.

“I won’t,” he said, and caught her arm.

“You – won’t! How can you say such a thing?”

“Because I like you. I have known you for years, though we never spoke to each other until yesterday.”

“Oh, dear! This is terrible! You frightened me so! I hope I didn’t hurt your poor arms?”

“The pain was awful,” he laughed.

The girl’s heart was beating so frantically that she could almost hear its pulsations. The white bandages on Martin’s wrists and hands aroused a tumult of emotion. The scene in the ghyll flashed before her eyes; she saw again the wild struggles of the snarling, tearing, biting animal, the boy’s cool daring and endurance until he crushed the raging thing’s life out of it and flung it away contemptuously.

An impulse came to her, and it was not to be repelled. She placed both hands on his shoulders and kissed him, quite fearlessly, on the lips.

“I think I owed you that,” she said, with a little sob, and then ran away in good earnest, never turning her head until she was safe within the drawing-room.

Martin, his brain in a whirl and his blood on fire, closed the gate for himself. When the vicar came, half an hour later, his daughter was busy over the same book.

“What, Elsie! None of the maids home yet?” he cried.

“No, father, dear. But Martin Bolland brought these.”

“Oh, our handkerchiefs. What did he say?”

“Nothing – of any importance. I understood that Dr. MacGregor caused the linen to be washed, but forgot to ask him why.”

“Is that all?”

“Practically all, except that his arms and hands are all bound up, so I went with him as far as the gate. It is stiff, you know. And – yes – he has been reading ‘Rokeby.’ He likes it.”

The vicar filled his pipe. He had had a trying day.

“Martin is a fine lad,” he said. “I hope John Bolland will see fit to educate him. Such a youngster should not be allowed to vegetate in a village like this.”

“Ah!” said Elsie, “that reminds me. He told me he was going away to school.”

“Capital!” agreed the vicar. “Out of evil comes good. It required an earthquake to move a man like Bolland!”

CHAPTER XIV

THE STORM

On the morrow rain fell. At first the village regarded the break in the weather as a thunderstorm, and harvesters looked to an early resumption of work. “A sup o’ wet’ll do nowt any harm,” they said. But a steadily declining “glass” and a continuous downpour that lost nothing in volume as the day wore caused increasing headshakes, anxious frowns, revilings not a few of the fickle elements.

The moorland becks became raging torrents. The gorged river rose until all the low-lying land was flooded, hundreds of pounds’ worth of corn in stook swept away, and all standing crops were damaged to an enormous extent. Cattle, sheep, poultry, even a horse or two, were caught by the rushing waters and drowned. A bridge became blocked by floating debris and crumbled before the flood. Three men were standing on the structure, idly watching the articles whirling past in the eddies; one, given a second’s firm footing, jumped for dear life and saved himself; the bodies of the others were found, many days afterwards, jammed against stakes placed in the stream a mile lower down to prevent fish poachers from netting an open reach.

This deluge, if indeed aught else were needed, wrecked the Feast. Every booth was dismantled, each wagon and caravan packed. The van dwellers only ceased their labors when all was in readiness for a move to the next fair ground; the Elmsdale week, usually a bright spot in their migratory calendar, was marked this year with absolute loss. At the best, and in few instances, it yielded a bare payment of expenses.

Farmers, of course, toiled early and late to avert further disaster. Stock were driven from pastures where danger threatened; cut corn was rescued in the hope that the next day’s sun might dry it; choked ditches were raked with long hoes to permit the water to flow off.

At last, when night fell, and the rain diminished to a thin drizzle, though the barometer gave no promise of improvement, men gathered in the village street and began comparing notes. Everyone had suffered in some degree; even the shopkeepers and private residents complained of ruined goods, gardens rooted up, houses invaded by the all-pervading floods.

But the farmers endured the greatest damage. Some had lost their half-year’s rent, many would be faced with privation and bankruptcy. Thrice fortunate now were the men with capital – those who could look forward with equanimity to another season when the wanton havoc inflicted by this wild raging of the waters should be recouped.

John Bolland, protected by an oilskin coat, crossed the road between the stockyard and the White House about eight o’clock.

“Eh, Mr. Bollan’, but this is a sad day’s wark,” said a friend who encountered him.

“Ah, it’s bad, very bad, an’ likely te be worse,” replied John, lifting his bent head and casting a weather-wise glance over the northerly moor.

“I’ve lost t’ best part o’ six acres o’ wuts,” (oats) growled his neighbor. “It’s hard to know what spite there was in t’ clouds te burst i’ that way.”

“Times an’ seasons aren’t i’ man’s hands,” was the quiet answer. “There’d be ill deed if sunshine an’ storm were settled by voates, like a county-council election.”

“Mebbe, and mebbe nut,” cried the other testily. “’Tis easy to leave ivvrything te Providence when yer money’s mostly i’ stock. Mine happens te be i’ crops.”

“An’ if mine were i’ crops, Mr. Pattison, I sud still thry te desarve well o’ Providence.”

This shrewd thrust evoked no wrath from Pattison, who was not a chapel-goer.

“Gosh!” he laughed, “some folks are lucky. They pile up riches both i’ this wulld an’ t’ wulld te come. Hooivver, we won’t argy. Hev ye heerd t’ news fra’ te t’ ‘Black Lion’?”

“Aboot poor George Pickerin’? Noa. I’ve bin ower thrang i’ t’ cow-byre.”

“He’s married, an’ med his will. Betsy is Mrs. Pickerin’ noo. But she’ll be a widdy afore t’ mornin’.”

“Is he as bad as all that?”

“Sinkin’ fast, they tell me. He kep’ up, like the game ’un he allus was, until Mr. Croft left him alone wi’ his wife. Then he fell away te nowt. He’s ravin’, I hear.”

“Croft! I thowt Stockwell looked efther his affairs.”

“Right enough! But Stockwell’s ya (one) trustee, Mr. Herbert’s t’ other. So Croft had te act.”

“Well, I’m rale sorry for t’ poor chap. He’s coom tiv a bad end.”

“Ye’ll be t’ foreman o’ t’ jury, most like?”

“Noa. I’ll be spared that job. Martin is a witness, more’s t’ pity. Good-night, Mr. Pattison. It’ll hu’t none if y’ are minded te offer up a prayer for betther weather.”