"I don't know," said he, "but we must get the things out. The tide's rising and the wind's getting up. The boat will go over before we know it.""But we must find the girl," I said. "She can't be left to drown.""I don't think it would matter much," said he, getting over the side of the boat with his awkward load. "She would be of about as much use drowned as any other way. If it hadn't been for that hole she cut in the side of the boat, this would never have happened.""You don't think it was that!" I said, holding the picture and the chair while he let himself down to the gang-plank.
"Yes, it was," he replied. "The tide's very high, and the water got over that hole and rushed in. The water and the wind will finish this old craft before very long."And then he took his load from me and dashed down the gang-plank.
I went below to look for Pomona. The lantern still hung on the nail, and I took it down and went into the kitchen. There was Pomona, dressed, and with her hat on, quietly packing some things in a basket.
"Come, hurry out of this," I cried. "Don't you know that this house--this boat, I mean, is a wreck?""Yes, sma'am--sir, I mean--I know it, and I suppose we shall soon be at the mercy of the waves.""Well, then, go as quickly as you can. What are you putting in that basket?""Food," she said. "We may need it."
I took her by the shoulder and hurried her on deck, over the bulwark, down the gang-plank, and so on to the place where I had left Euphemia.
I found the dear girl there, quiet and collected, all up in a little bunch, to shield herself from the wind. I wasted no time, but hurried the two women over to the house of our milk-merchant.
There, with some difficulty, I roused the good woman, and after seeing Euphemia and Pomona safely in the house, I left them to tell the tale, and ran back to the boat.
The boarder was working like a Trojan. He had already a pile of our furniture on the beach.
I set about helping him, and for an hour we labored at this hasty and toilsome moving. It was indeed a toilsome business. The floors were shelving, the stairs leaned over sideways, ever so far, and the gang-plank was desperately short and steep.
Still, we saved quite a number of household articles. Some things we broke and some we forgot, and some things were too big to move in this way; but we did very well, considering the circumstances.
The wind roared, the tide rose, and the boat groaned and creaked.
We were in the kitchen, trying to take the stove apart (the boarder was sure we could carry it up, if we could get the pipe out and the legs and doors off), when we heard a crash. We rushed on deck and found that the garden had fallen in! Making our way as well as we could toward the gaping rent in the deck, we saw that the turnip-bed had gone down bodily into the boarder's room. He did not hesitate, but scrambled down his narrow stairs. I followed him.
He struck a match that he had in his pocket, and lighted a little lantern that hung under the stairs. His room was a perfect rubbish heap. The floor, bed, chairs, pitcher, basin--everything was covered or filled with garden mold and turnips. Never did I behold such a scene. He stood in the midst of it, holding his lantern high above his head. At length he spoke.
"If we had time," he said, "we might come down here and pick out a lot of turnips.""But how about your furniture?" I exclaimed.
"Oh, that's ruined!" he replied.
So we did not attempt to save any of it, but we got hold of his trunk and carried that on shore.
When we returned, we found that the water was pouring through his partition, making the room a lake of mud. And, as the water was rising rapidly below, and the boat was keeling over more and more, we thought it was time to leave, and we left.
It would not do to go far away from our possessions, which were piled up in a sad-looking heap on the shore; and so, after I had gone over to the milk-woman's to assure Euphemia of our safety, the boarder and I passed the rest of the night--there was not much of it left--in walking up and down the beach smoking some cigars which he fortunately had in his pocket.
In the morning I took Euphemia to the hotel, about a mile away--and arranged for the storage of our furniture there, until we could find another habitation. This habitation, we determined, was to be in a substantial house, or part of a house, which should not be affected by the tides.
During the morning the removal of our effects was successfully accomplished, and our boarder went to town to look for a furnished room. He had nothing but his trunk to take to it.
In the afternoon I left Euphemia at the hotel, where she was taking a nap (she certainly needed it, for she had spent the night in a wooden rocking-chair at the milk-woman's), and I strolled down to the river to take a last look at the remains of old Rudder Grange.
I felt sadly enough as I walked along the well-worn path to the canal-boat, and thought how it had been worn by my feet more than any other's, and how gladly I had walked that way, so often during that delightful summer. I forgot all that had been disagreeable, and thought only of the happy times we had had.
It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, and the wind had entirely died away. When I came within sight of our old home, it presented a doleful appearance. The bow had drifted out into the river, and was almost entirely under water. The stern stuck up in a mournful and ridiculous manner, with its keel, instead of its broadside, presented to the view of persons on the shore. As I neared the boat I heard a voice. I stopped and listened. There was no one in sight. Could the sounds come from the boat? I concluded that it must be so, and I walked up closer. Then I heard distinctly the words:
"He grasp ed her by the thro at and yell ed, swear to me thou nev er wilt re veal my se cret, or thy hot heart's blood shall stain this mar bel fib or; she gave one gry vy ous gasp and--"It was Pomona!
Doubtless she had climbed up the stern of the boat and had descended into the depths of the wreck to rescue her beloved book, the reading of which had so long been interrupted by my harsh decrees. Could I break in on this one hour of rapture? I had not the heart to do it, and as I slowly moved away, there came to me the last words that I ever heard from Rudder Grange:
"And with one wild shry ik to heav en her heart's blo od spat ter ed that prynce ly home of woe--".
