The Luck of the Vails: A Novel

by E. F. Benson

"You are beginning to believe in it, you know," said Harry.

"Indeed I am not."

"Looks like it," and Mr. Francis joining them, he went off whistling.

Very much rain must have fallen during the night, for yesterday the lake was not notably higher than its normal limits, whereas now, so few hours afterward, it had swollen so as to over-top the stonework of the sluice, and a steady rush of water fell over the ledge into the outlet below. This, ordinarily a smooth-flowing chalk stream, was now a riotous race of headlong water, sufficient to carry a man off his feet, and, as they paused a minute or two to watch the grand rush of it, they could see that, even in so short a space, the flow of water over the stonework was increasing in volume, showing that the lake was rising every minute. The gate walls of the sluice were not very thick, and seemed hardly built for such a press of water; in one or two places Mr. Francis observed that there appeared to be cracks right through them, for water spurted out as from a hose. The sluice itself seemed to have got somewhat choked with the débris of branches and leaves with which the storm had covered the surface of the lake, and a Saragossa Sea of drift stretched out to a considerable radius from it.

Adjoining the main lock was a small wooden water gate, designed, no doubt, for the relief in time of flood, but this was shut down, and Harry, splashing through the water, tried to pull it up, in order to give an additional outlet, but the wood was swollen with the wet, and he could not stir it. Mr. Francis observed his actions with some attention; his feet were firmly planted on the stone slab that covered the sluice, and the water rose like a frill over his boots, as, with bent and straining figure, he exerted his utmost force to raise the gate. Once, as for firmer purchase he wedged his right foot against the side of the water channel and bowed to a final effort, the block of stonework on which he stood seemed to tremble. A cry of warning rose to Mr. Francis's lips, but it remained unuttered; only his face wore an expression of intense conflicting expectation. But Harry's efforts were fruitless, and soon desisting, he splashed his way back. Elsewhere the lake was rapidly encroaching on the outskirts of the lawn; pools of rain lay in the lower undulations of it, and these, joining with its swollen waters, formed long, liquid tongues and bays. Here a clump of bushes stood out like an island in a lagoon, here an outlying flower bed was altogether submerged, and the dark soil was floated by the water in a spreading stain over the adjoining grass.

"This will never do," said Harry; "the place will be in a mess for months if we don't get the water off somehow. It is that choked sluice which is doing all the mischief. We had better go up to the farm, Uncle Francis, and send some men to clear it. Lord, how it rains!"

"Yes, that will be the best plan," said he. "Stay, Harry, I will go, and do you run back to the sluice, my dear fellow, and see if it is raised quite to the top; we never looked at that. You might get a big stick also, and begin clearing away the stuff that chokes it. And have another pull at the wooden gate. If you can get that open, it is all right. Go and break your back over it, my dear boy; it seemed to yield a little that last pull you gave. What muscles, what muscles!" he said, feeling his arm. "Try again at the wooden sluice, and be quick. There is no time to lose; we shall have the water up to the house in less than an hour if this goes on."

Mr. Francis went off at a rapid amble in the direction of the farm, and Harry returned to wrestle with the wooden sluice. Even in the few minutes that they had been away the water had risen beyond belief, and when again he splashed across the stone slab of the sluice to the smaller gate, the swift-flowing stream over the top of it was half knee-deep, and pressed against him like a strong man. It was no longer possible to see the spouting escape beneath, for the arch of turbid water was continuous and unbroken from side to side.

He wrapped his handkerchief round the ring which raised the gate, and again putting shoulder and straining back into it, bent to his task. One foot he had braced against the stone coping of the side, the other he pressed to the ironwork of the main sluice, and, pulling firmly and strongly till he felt the muscles of his spine stand out like woven cords, he knew that something stirred. At that he paused a moment, the strong flood pouring steadily round him, and collecting himself, bent down again and called on every sinew for one sudden effort. On the instant he felt the stone slab on which he stood reel under his left foot, and half guessing, for the moment was too brief for conscious conclusion, that the sluice had given way bodily, sprang for all he was worth from the overturning mass. But the effort was an effort made in air; his right foot slipped from the edge of the coping, and the whole sluice wall turned under him, throwing him, as luck would have it, clear of the toppling mass, but full into the stream below. As he fell he caught at the masonry of the sides of the channel, to prevent himself being carried down.

For one half second his grasp was firm; at the next, with an incredible roar of water, the released flood poured down from the lake, brushing his hand from its grasp as lightly as a man whisks a settling fly from sugar, and rolled him over and over among the screaming débris, now tossing him into mid stream, now burying him in the yellow, turbulent flood, now throwing him up on the top of a wave like chaff in a high wind, as helpless as a suckling child in the grip of some wild beast. Impotently and without purpose he snatched at hurrying wreckage, even at the twisted ropes of water that hurled him along, conscious only of the wild excitement of this foregone battle, without leisure to be afraid. He seemed to himself to be motionless, while the banks and lawns shot by him with an inconceivable swiftness, but bearing toward him, as he suddenly remembered, with the same giddy speed, the bridge over which the road to the lodge passed. How often had he stood there, watching the trout poise and dart in the clear, flowing water!