XVIII

Miller Bond had long since found out, in an indirect way, who the gentleman was that met the hamlet prude Mary Shaw in the rickyard by the mill-pool. He had observed, too, that of late this gentleman had ceased to come, and he had heard through his assistant (who watched the machinery while Bond looked over the hatch) of Barnard’s frequent visits to Beechknoll.

It was a matter of common hamlet gossip how Miss Felise had thrown over Mr. Godwin “all of a sudden” and “took” to “that there idle Barnard fellow”; not much of a change for her either, but “hur be a flighty one, hur be,” was their comment.

The miller had noticed, too, that when Mary Shaw and Abner met in the rickyard, their courting generally ended in Mary’s having a burst of crying, sometimes passionately weeping, and becoming so convulsed and overcome that it was with difficulty he could soothe her.

One evening⁠—it was Wednesday⁠—after witnessing such a scene from behind the stubble-rick and elder-bush, the miller saw Abner and Mary start to go away, Mary still hanging upon him, and apparently sobbing. After they had gone the miller composed himself upon the log of timber, hoisted up his gun on his knees, and prepared to shoot the first rat that ventured out now he could do so without disturbing the lovers.

Two or three minutes afterwards he heard a slight cry and a great splash in the mill-pool, and jumped up in alarm to see what it could be. He had to run some yards before he could see down into the pool. Leaning over the fence he strained his short neck and saw Mary Shaw struggling and gasping in the water.

Some kind of shout or loud exclamation issued from his lips, and then, as if by mechanism, he put his gun to his shoulder and fired up in the air.

At the same moment Martial came up⁠—looked over⁠—exclaimed⁠—tore off his coat, and then paused, for he remembered his heavy boots. They were laced and tied tightly; he got his penknife and slit the laces, kicked them off, stepped upon the fence, balanced himself a second, and sprang forward.

The miller, at the sound of the splash when Martial struck the surface, hurled his gun away and set up another shout. He then began dancing, stamping his feet up and down like a child in a rage.

Martial went down feet first, holding his breath; the water closed over him. In another second he rose and began to swim, and in half a minute⁠—he had to go round a little to seize her properly⁠—he had hold of poor Mary. She fainted immediately after he touched her.

Martial instantly swam with her towards the side of the pool, for a moment forgetting that he could not land on a perpendicular wall of chalk. As he neared the side he looked up and remembered that there were no means of exit from the pool, which was, in fact, a very large well. He began to tread water and paddle with one hand (holding Mary with the other) while he considered how to get out.

He could not see a way out; steep walls of chalk enclosed him on every side. Another face was now gazing down at him; the miller’s man had run up at the sound of the gun, expecting to see a dead rat, instead of which there were two human beings in a trap.

“Is there no way to get out?” said Martial.

“No, that there bean’t,” said the miller’s man. “There bean’t no way out. You be drownded.”

The miller himself stopped dancing with his feet, and now sucked the forefinger first of one hand and then of the other, staring the while without blinking at the pair in the water. First he thrust one finger in his mouth, and then the other, and pulled them out with a sucking sound. His shock head of red hair, as he strained his neck over the fence, was dimly reflected on the ripples of the pool. Martial’s movements sent ripples breaking against the cliffs of chalk.

So far as Martial could see there was not a root, nor a piece of ivy, nor any plant, nor even a blade of grass in a crevice to which he could cling. There was no hatch in the pool; it was outside where the water ran from a culvert into the mill-wheel trough.

So long as he could tread water, or swim to and fro, he should survive; as his strength decreased he must sink unless help came. The two fools looking down were evidently too stupid to assist him.

“Help!” shouted Martial at the top of his voice. “Help! help!” hoping someone passing might hear and bring the aid of intelligence to direct mere muscles. The perpendicular wall-like sides of chalk sent his voice straight up; it rose into the air instead of spreading laterally. No one could have heard at a short distance from the edge of the pool.

“Us can’t help,” said the miller’s man, stolidly looking down, with his arms crossed miller-fashion on the fence. “You be drownded.”

“Fetch someone else!” said Martial, angry and anxious.

“Bean’t no good. Bean’t nobody about.”

Aware that he could not possibly hold out very long with Mary’s dead-weight to support, Martial began to swim with her slowly round the pool, eagerly scanning the chalk walls for some hole or chink or ledge upon which he could rest his hand and so support himself. There was none. He tried to scrape a hole⁠—the chalk crumbled a little, but was hard under the immediate surface; his nails would be worn to the quick, and even then he could not do it. He might perhaps have done it with his penknife, but he had dropped it on the grass after cutting his laces.

“Be quick!” he called. “Fetch someone⁠—quick!”

“They be all gone to Jones’s sale,” said the miller’s man. “You won’t last long.”

Had not Martial been in so dangerous a position I doubt not he would have cursed him with set teeth. But extreme danger silences anger; now danger was increasing every moment, Martial lost his rage at their stupidity. He ceased to regard them as human beings whose disposition concerned him, at whose senselessness he should feel annoyed, or hurt at their callousness. All his faculties were strained to discover means of escape, and the personal characters of the fools on the brink above faded out of sight. He forgot them as men; he looked at them as machines.

Could he animate these stolidities? Could he set their slow minds in operation by any suggestion?

He asked himself, as he again trod water and paddled with one hand, what he should try to do if he were in their place on the bank and others were in peril.

“Get a rope!” he shouted immediately, as the answer to his thought.

“A raup?”

“Yes, a rope⁠—quick!”

The miller’s man looked over his shoulder once or twice, lifted his greasy hat and scratched his head; then he turned and walked slowly away to try and find a rope.

Though it was the height of the summer the water was cold; the rays of the sun never reached it, and Martial felt a distinct loss of heat. It suggested a calculation. How long could he endure?

He crushed down the thought, and addressed himself again to the task of animating the other stolidity on the bank above.

“Miller! throw me something to hold⁠—something that will float!”

“You be Miss Goring’s man,” said Bond, finding speech at last.

“Throw me a plank⁠—a pole⁠—a rail⁠—”

“You be hur man. I knows who you be.”

“Fling me something⁠—a log⁠—a gate⁠—anything!”

“Hur will go mad,” said the miller, to whom Martial’s death by drowning was a foregone and accepted conclusion.

He thought not of Martial, but of Felise⁠—Felise who had once given him three red roses.

The sight of Mary in the pool had upset the balance of his brain, which had hung level like scales not in use so many years. This rude jolt sent his mind oscillating up and down as if the scales had been struck with a fist. Off went his gun⁠—bang! He danced with his feet. He sucked his forefingers.

By degrees the scales settled, and he grasped the terrible meaning Martial’s death would have to the child who had given him the three red roses. Now Miller Bond would gladly have worked day and night for her sake; he would have faced great danger; he would have done anything for her; his heart was still grateful for those flowers. This very anxiety upset the scales again; and, in short. Miller Bond lost his head.

“A gate,” said Martial; “unhinge a gate! Throw me something that will float!”

“Thur,” said the miller with an idiotic grin, plucking off his hat and hurling it into the water, as if Martial could cling to the greasy felt⁠—a straw indeed for a drowning man.

Next came his apron, then a shower of little sticks torn from the fence, then a handful of dock leaves; then he ran to and fro and returned with a heavy iron sheep-trough, which he raised above his head.

“Take care!” shouted Martial, for if the trough struck him it would stun him, perhaps kill him instantly.

Splash came the trough, raising a wave which washed Martial and his burden to and fro; the trough sank immediately.

“Wood!” shouted Martial; “not iron⁠—iron sinks.” Danger made him as patient as a mother explaining the properties of things to a little child. “Get some wood.”

“Hur will go mad,” said the miller, whose brain-scales were settling again. He paused, and gazed down at the pair in the water.

“Thur bean’t no raup,” said the miller’s man, coming back.