The Red Man's Revenge: A Tale of The Red River Flood, R. M. Ballantyne [pride and prejudice read .txt] 📗

“Oh, Mrs Ravenshaw, get up quick; the flood is coming in at last—over the floors—through the chinks—up the seams—everywhere—do—do get up! We shall all be—”

She stopped. A long-drawn sigh and a gentle “hush!” was all the reply vouchsafed by Mrs Ravenshaw.

A quarter of an hour later Miss Trim came nervously back. “It’s rushing in now like anything! Oh, do get up! We may have to fly! The boards of the floor have been forced up, and they’ve had to take the door off its hinges—”

She stopped again. Mrs Ravenshaw, with placid face and closed eyes, had replied with another gentle “hush–sh!”

Descending once more, Miss Trim was met by a sudden stream, which had burst in the back door. Rushing again into the old lady’s bedroom, she cried vehemently, “Woman! won’t you get up?”

“Why should I?” asked the other in a sleepy tone. “Isn’t Samuel looking after it?”

“Of course he is, but—”

“Well, well,” interrupted the old lady, a little testily, “if he’s there it’s all right. He knows what to do, I don’t. Neither do you, Miss Trim; so pray go away and let me sleep.”

Poor Miss Trim retired discomfited. Afterwards when the family were driven to the upper storey of the dwelling she learned to regard things with something of Mrs Ravenshaw’s philosophy.

One morning at daylight there was a calm so profound that the sleepers at Willow Creek were not awakened until the sun rose in a cloudless sky and glittered over the new-born sea with ineffable splendour. It was a strange and sad though beautiful sight. Where these waters lay like a sheet of glass, spreading out to the scarce visible horizon, the grass-waves of the prairie had rolled in days gone by. There were still some knolls visible, some tops of trees and bushes, like islets on the sea, and one or two square masses of drift-wood floating slowly along with the now imperceptible current, like boats under full sail. Here and there could be seen several wooden houses and barns, some of which had come down from the upper parts of the settlement, like the hut of old Liz, and were stranded awkwardly on shoals, while others were still drifting over the watery waste.

All this was clearly visible from the windows of the upper room, in which slept the sisters Elsie and Cora, and presented itself to the former when she awoke like a vision of fairyland. Unable to believe her eyes, she rubbed them with her pretty little knuckles, and gazed again.

“How beautiful!” she exclaimed.

The exclamation awoke Cora, who sat up and yawned. Then she looked at her sister, and being only half-awake, smiled in an imbecile manner.

“Isn’t it?” asked Elsie.

“Splendid!” replied Cora, turning to the windows. “Oh, I’m so sleepy!”

She sank on the pillow again and shut her eyes.

“Come, Cora, let us finish the discussion we began last night about Louis Lambert,” said Elsie, with an arch smile.

“No, I won’t! Let me sleep. I hate Louis Lambert!” said Cora, with a shake of her uppermost shoulder.

Elsie laughed and rose; she was already dressed. Mr Ravenshaw had on the previous night ordered both his daughters to lie down in their clothes, as no one could tell what might happen to the house at any moment. The flood had not yet begun to abate; Elsie could tell that, as she sat arranging her hair, from the sound of water gurgling through the lower rooms.

We have said that the Ravenshaws had been driven by the floods to the upper floor of their residence. This floor consisted of three bedrooms and a lumber-room. One of the bedrooms was very small and belonged to the sisters, to whose sole use it was apportioned. For convenience, the other two rooms were set apart on this occasion as the male and the female rooms of the establishment, one being used by as many of the women as could get comfortably into it, the other by the men. The overflow of the household, including those neighbours who had sought refuge with the family, were accommodated in the adjoining barn, between which and the main building communication was kept up by means of a canoe, with Peegwish and Wildcat as the ferrymen. The lumber-room having had most of its lumber removed, was converted into a general hall, or salon, where the imprisoned family had their meals, received their friends, and discussed their trials. It was a rather dusty place, with sloping roof, no ceiling, and cross-beams, that caused cross tempers in those who ran against them. In one corner a door, removed from its hinges, did duty as a dresser. In another Mr Ravenshaw had erected a small stove, on which, being rather proud of his knowledge of cookery, he busied himself in spoiling a good deal of excellent food. A couple of planks, laid on two trunks, served for a table. Such cooking utensils and such portions of light furniture as were required had been brought up from the rooms below, that which was left having been weighted with large stones to prevent its being carried away, for the lower doors and windows had been removed to prevent their being driven in or out, as the case might be.

So complete was the destruction everywhere, that Samuel Ravenshaw had passed into a gleeful state of recklessness, and appeared to enjoy the fun of thus roughing it rather than otherwise, to the amusement of his amiable wife, who beheld his wasteful and daring culinary efforts without a murmur, and to the horror of Miss Trim, who was called upon to assist in and share the triumphs as well as the dangers of these efforts.

“Fetch the pepper now, Miss Trim. That’s it, thank ’ee.—Hallo! I say, the top has come off that rascally thing, and half the contents have gone into the pan!”

He was engaged in frying a mess of pemmican and flour, of which provender he had secured enough to stand a siege of at least six months’ duration.

“Never mind,” he continued; “in with more flour and more pemmican. That’s your sort. It’ll make it taste more like curry, which is hot enough, in all conscience.”

“But pepper is not like curry,” said Miss Trim, who had a brother in India, and was consequently a secondhand authority on Indian affairs. “Curry is hot, no doubt, and what one may call a seasoning; but it has not the flavour of pepper at all, and is not the colour of it, and—”

“Yes, yes, I know all about that, Miss Trim. Why, there’s a box of it, isn’t there, in the little cupboard on the stair? I quite forgot it. Fetch it, please, and we’ll have real pemmican curry; and rouse up my lazy girls as you pass. Don’t disturb Mrs R, though. The proverb says, ‘Let sleeping’—no, I don’t mean that exactly. By the way, don’t slip on the stair. The water’s about up to that cupboard. Mind, there are six feet water or more in the passage now, and if—”

He stopped, for Miss Trim had already left the room, just as Lambert entered it.

The cupboard to which Miss Trim had been sent was an angular one, let into the wall to utilise a crooked corner. The step of the stair immediately below it was the last dry one of the flight. From that step to the bottom was held by the flood, which gurgled oilily through the deserted basement. Descending to that step with caution, and gazing anxiously at her own image reflected below, she opened the cupboard door.

Now, it chanced that Angus Macdonald’s Cochin-China hen, having been driven from its own home by the flood, had strayed into Mr Ravenshaw’s house and established itself, uninvited, in the cupboard. It received Miss Trim with a croak of indignation and a flutter. Starting back with a slight, “Oh!” the poor lady fell; and who shall adequately describe, or even imagine, the effects of that fall? Many a time had Miss Trim descended that stair and passage on her feet, but never until then had she done so on her back, like a mermaid or a seal! Coming to the surface immediately, she filled the house with a yell that almost choked the hearers, caused old Ravenshaw to heave the pemmican curry into the lap of Lambert, and induced Lambert himself to leap down-stairs to the rescue like a harlequin. The bold youth had to swim for it! A gurgle at the far end of the passage told where Miss Trim was going down, like wedding announcements, for the third and last time. Lambert went in like an otter, caught the lady in his arms, and bore her to the staircase, and thence to the upper floor in a few minutes. She was at once taken to the sisters’ bedroom, and there restored to life and lamentation.

“My dear,” said Mr Ravenshaw to his wife when she appeared, “you’d better look after our breakfast—I’ve made a mess of it, and I’ll go over to Angus Macdonald and invite him and his household to come and stay with us. Their house must be almost afloat by this time.”

The old gentleman hailed Peegwish, who was outside in the canoe at the moment.

That would-be brewer at once made for the house, paddled his canoe through the doorway and up the passage to the staircase, where Wildcat, who managed the bow paddle, held on by the bannister while Mr Ravenshaw embarked. Reissuing from the doorway, they made for their neighbour’s residence.

Macdonald’s house had indeed become almost uninhabitable. It stood so deep in the water that only the upper windows were visible. The chimneys and roofs of some of the outhouses formed, with the main building and a few tree-tops, a small Archipelago.

“You are fery kind, Mr Ruvnshaw,” said Angus from an upper window, beneath which the canoe floated. “It iss not improbaple that my house will pe goin’ down the river like a post, but that iss nothing—not anything at all—when there will pe such a destruction goin’ on all over the settlement whatever. It iss fery coot of you, oo ay. I will put my fuddle into the canoe, an’ my sister she will pe ready at wance.—Wass you ready, Martha?”

A voice from the interior intimated that Miss Martha would be, “ready in two minutes.”

“Pe quick, then,” said Macdonald, looking inwards while he lowered his violin, to which he was passionately attached, into the canoe, “you hef not much time to waste, Martha, for it wass time we will pe goin’.”

In a few minutes Angus Macdonald’s house was abandoned to its fate, and himself and sister, with a couple of domestics, were added to the number of refugees who crowded to the abode of hospitable Sam Ravenshaw.

“Hef you forgotten the cawtie?” asked Angus of his sister, while assisting her to land on the steps from which Miss Trim had taken her dive.

“No, Angus, I’ve got it in my basket, but I fear the poor old hen has been lost. It’s all over the house I sought for it before comin’ away, but—”

A triumphant cackle from the cupboard overhead interrupted Miss Martha.

“Ha! ha!” shouted Mr Ravenshaw; “thats where the sound came from this morning! And I do believe it must have been that brute which caused Miss Trim to fall into the water.”

With a twinkle in his eye, the old gentleman related the incident of the morning, while Angus, with a grim expression, kept his eye on Beauty, who gazed inquiringly out at the half-open door of her retreat.

“It iss a pad craitur you’ve peen—fery pad—ever since I got you, but it iss no more mischief you will pe dooin’ after this—whatever.”

Angus seized the unfortunate hen by the neck as he spoke, and flung it along the passage, where it fell into the water, and went cackling and choking through the doorway.

Beauty’s powers were varied as well as surprising. Although thus, for the first time in her life, compelled to take to the water, she swam as well as any duck, and