Lup stood up in the stern to hail, and found his voice a dead thing in his throat. All night long it had been calling, but it was dumb, now. In his pocket his icy fingers crushed the forgotten violets meant for his mother.
Lancaster, at an oar, looked up at his terrible face, and shivered. Somebody called, and they rowed closer. Across the sill of an upper room the wind had blown the silvery strand of a woman’s hair. They hailed once more, and drew towards it; but when they saw the watermark, they were silent.
So, on Mothering Sunday, Lup Whinnerah came home again.
CHAPTER XXV
ONE MAN’S WORK
It was a strange and fearful world that lifted its mangled face to the growing day. The wind was still blowing, but with less violence, and the rain drifted in a kind of desultory fretfulness between the weary grays of earth and sky. From all the districts round folk had come to see what the storm had made of the marsh, and the wreck of Lancaster’s Lugg had sped on wire and rail through the country. On all hands men were at work saving what they could of the remnant of stock; here, a sheep crawled on a fence within a few inches of the reaching water; there, cattle still deep in it long after noon had struck. Pippin Hall was completely surrounded, but friends had crossed the swollen river with food, and from an upper window Holliday asked shakingly for news of the Pride. Pippin had lost almost everything it could lose—ewes, new lambs, calves, poultry, stacks, turnips, mangolds, carts—and had half a ruined house to top the account. Only, by some miracle, the prize beasts had been saved. Standing up to their necks, half a mile from dry land, they could only be approached by boat, and the difficult and dangerous rescue extended far into the afternoon. Poor Denny had lost a valuable horse as well as half his flock. Nearly every farm had suffered with its sheep, and the “dead, woolly things” of Brack’s prophecy covered the marsh.
On the sea-roads the water rose level with the hedges all day, and, when it left, the scars of the land crept shudderingly into sight. Great holes five and six feet deep where had been metalled surface, uprooted fences and railings twisted like cord; and everywhere dead things, rabbits, hares, poultry—and always sheep. The peaceful, cared-for country lay broken and horribly disfigured, as if by the riving hands of a maddened giant.
And over it all—gray; the gray of desolation, of cowering shame, of finished defeat and despair.
Lancaster stood in the wet kitchen at Ladyford, and stared at his wrecked world. He looked utterly changed, years older, stunned and almost wondering, like a man struck from empty skies. His face and hands were blue with cold, and his wet clothes clung to him soddenly. Before him he could see the Lugg heaving out of the clearing sands, and the Pride still girthed in flood—guard and trap, betrayer and betrayed. In the room above him he could hear footsteps, hushed and slow. The Pride had given up its dead that Ladyford might take them in.
Lup was dropped at the table with his head on his arms, and opposite him Francey stood stiffly, white as the new scrubbing-stone on the hastily fettled hearth. When Lancaster turned from the window with a definite movement, Whinnerah lifted his face and looked from him to the girl. So, to the slow music of the hushed steps, they stared at each other, the three who had sent the proud old couple to their doom.
“They went on my word!” Lancaster said at last, in a curious voice. “I wonder if they forgave me before they died?”