The Irish mind is not, like the German, fundamentally geographical; and for a moment the clergyman did not entirely grasp the situation.
“How terrible! When did it happen?” he said, with as yet no sense that the matter might concern him or his.
“The last message came a few minutes ago. Operator stood at her post till the last gasp—ticked over the wires, ‘This is my last message,’—then, I suppose, she was swept away, for we can’t get an answer from anywhere near there. The next news we have of the flood”—
“I see!” said Mr. Clare suddenly. “I see. The next news will be brought by the water itself!”
For a moment the two men stared at each other in horror. Then Mr. Clare said, “How much time have we to get ready for it? one hour? two?”
“Can’t hardly tell,” said one of the older operators, looking up from his instrument. “Of course, she loses force and swiftness as she comes along, and it won’t be no forty feet that we’ll get; but, with the river we’ve got now, I guess we’ll have all the water we want. We’ve telephoned the mayor’s office, and, probably, he’ll have the bells rung, to warn the people. My folks will have the flood over the tops of their chimneys, I guess, but I don’t see no way to help it. I can’t leave that door till the flood comes in at the window, or I won’t, anyway.”
“I’ll see to them,” said Ernest Clare, “and to your family, too, Heinz. I say, I suppose ‘Prices’ is above high-water mark?”
“It’s six foot, about, above all the high-water mark we have now,” said the operator grimly. “I don’t say where it’ll be to-morrow; but, maybe, their third story won’t be very wet.”
“It’s as safe as anywhere,” said Heinz, “except the tops of the hills.”
“Just so,” replied the other, and Mr. Clare hurried away.