“Well,” said Alberta, “I have sometimes had to look on while hamlets were burning and spies hanging, but I could not have done anything like that.”
Notwithstanding that Elfie had been seized and carried off by guerrillas, and ought to have been in despair, she was not. On the contrary, she was hungry; and so she made a very good supper, and with very little assistance from Alberta, she cleared the table of everything eatable on it.
Meanwhile outside the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and the rain poured.
It was not a storm to alarm any one who was not exposed to its fury; for at that season of the year thunder and lightning could not be very violent or dangerous. But the rain! Surely, since the deluge never had rain fallen in such torrents.
“The fords will be impassable for a week,” said Alberta, exultingly, as she went to the window and looked out and listened to the pouring, dashing, lashing rain.
Elfie sighed deeply, thinking that the rise in the river would make rescue for her all the more unlikely.
Alberta went to the door of her room and called Gill, who seemed to be on duty in the hall outside.
“Take away this service, Gill,” she said.
And the youth, to make short work, stretched the door wide open and lifted the table, with all upon it, and carried it bodily out of the room.
Alberta and Elfie drew in their chairs to the fire.