She lighted his candle, while the poor wife, snatching up her baby, burst into screams; and then she hurried down again to see if the waters were rising fast.There was a step down into the room at the door leading from the staircase: she saw that the water was already on a level with the step.While she was looking, something came with a tremendous crash against the window, and sent the leaded panes and the old wooden framework inwards in shivers, - the water pouring in after it.
`It is the boat!' cried Maggie.`Bob, come down to get the boats!'
And without a moment's shudder of fear, she plunged through the water, which was rising fast to her knees, and by the glimmering light of the candle she had left on the stairs, she mounted on to the window-sill, and crept into the boat, which was left with the prow lodging and protruding through the window.Bob was not long after her, hurrying without shoes or stockings, but with the lanthorn in his hand.
`Why, they're both here - both the boats,' said Bob, as he got into the one where Maggie was.`It's wonderful this fastening isn't broke too, as well as the mooring.'
In the excitement of getting into the other boat, unfastening it and mastering an oar, Bob was not struck with the danger Maggie incurred.We are not apt to fear for the fearless, when we are companions in their danger, and Bob's mind was absorbed in possible expedients for the safety of the helpless in-doors.The fact that Maggie had been up, had waked him, and had taken the lead in activity, gave Bob a vague impression of her as one who would help to protect, not need to be protected.She too had got possession of an oar, and had pushed off, so as to release the boat from the overhanging window-frame.
`The water's rising so fast,' said Bob, `I doubt it'll be in at the chambers before long - th' house is so low.I've more mind to get Prissy and the child and the mother into the boat, if I could and trusten to the water - for th' old house is none so safe.And if I let go the boat - but you ,' he exclaimed, suddenly lifting the light of his lanthorn on Maggie, as she stood in the rain with the oar in her hand and her black hair streaming.
Maggie had no time to answer, for a new tidal current swept along the line of the houses, and drove both the boats out on to the wide water, with a force that carried them far past the meeting current of the river.
In the first moments Maggie felt nothing, thought of nothing, but that she had suddenly passed away from that life which she had been dreading:
it was the transition of death, without its agony - and she was alone in the darkness with God.
The whole thing had been so rapid - so dreamlike - that the threads of ordinary association were broken: she sank down on the seat clutching the oar mechanically, and for a long while had no distinct conception of her position.The first thing that waked her to fuller consciousness, was the cessation of the rain, and a perception that the darkness was divided by the faintest light, which parted the overhanging gloom from the immeasurable watery level below.She was driven out upon the flood: - that awful visitation of God which her father used to talk of - which had made the nightmare of her childish dreams.And with that thought there rushed in the vision of the old home - and Tom - and her mother - they had all listened together.
`O God, where am I? Which is the way home?' she cried out, in the dim loneliness.
What was happening to them at the Mill? The flood had once nearly destroyed it.They might be in danger - in distress: her mother and her brother, alone there, beyond reach of help! Her whole soul was strained now on that thought; and she saw the long-loved faces looking for help into the darkness, and finding none.
She was floating in smooth water now - perhaps far on the over-flooded fields.There was no sense of present danger to check the outgoing of her mind to the old home; and she strained her eyes against the curtain of gloom that she might seize the first sight of her whereabout - that she might catch some faint suggestion of the spot towards which all her anxieties tended.
O how welcome, the widening of that dismal watery level - the gradual uplifting of the cloudy firmament - the slowly defining blackness of objects above the glassy dark! Yes - she must be out on the fields - those were the tops of hedgerow trees.Which way did the river lie? Looking behind her, she saw the lines of black trees: looking before her there were none:
then, the river lay before her.She seized an oar and began to paddle the boat forward with the energy of wakening hope: the dawning seemed to advance more swiftly, now she was in action; and she could soon see the poor dumb beasts crowding piteously on a mound where they had taken refuge.Onward she paddled and rowed by turns in the growing twilight: her wet clothes clung round her, and her streaming hair was dashed about by the wind, but she was hardly conscious of any bodily sensations - except a sensation of strength, inspired by mighty emotion.Along with the sense of danger and possible rescue for those long-remembered beings at the old home, there was an undefined sense of reconcilement with her brother: what quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs? Vaguely, Maggie felt this; - in the strong resurgent love towards her brother that swept away all the later impressions of hard, cruel offence and misunderstanding, and left only the deep, underlying, unshakable memories of early union.