“I have been used to them all my life,” the young lawyer said. “I have an old aunt who lives as close to the river as this, and who has the water in her garden every year. I used to be sent on visits there when I was a child, and oh! the transports of the inundation and the old punt in which we used to float about. To come up under the windows in that punt was bliss.”
“You could not do that here,” said Ally, with that pride in the Hook which was part of the family character. “The water never comes above the garden. I showed you the highest flood-mark was on a level with the terrace round the house.”
“Yes,” said the visitor, with an implicit faith which was not universal among those who heard this tale. “What a piece of good fortune that is! You must feel as if you were in an oasis in the midst of the desert.”
Ally felt that the metaphor was not very appropriate, but of course she knew what he meant. She said, “The little boys are as fond of seeing the floods as you were when you were a boy.”
“It would be difficult work if at any time the house was cut off—I beg your pardon,” said Rochford, “that is nonsense, of course; but do you know I dreamed the other night that the river was higher than ever had been known, and was sweeping all round the Hook, and that the family were in danger? I got out in my boat on the wildest whirling stream, and steered as well as I could for your window. Which is your window, Miss Penton? I knew quite well which it was in my dream, and steered for it. That one! why then I was right, for that was where I steered.”
“You frighten me,” said Ally, “but the water has never come near the house.”
“It did on this occasion. There were people at all the windows, but I steered for yours. I heard myself calling Miss Penton, and you wouldn’t let me save you. You kept putting the children into my arms, and I could not refuse the children—but I shall never forget the horror with which I woke up, finding that you always delayed and delayed and would not come.”
“How kind of you,” said Ally, laughing, but with a little blush, “to take so much trouble even in your dream.”
“Trouble!” he cried, “but yet it was great trouble, for you would not come. I heard myself calling, trying every kind of argument, but you always pushed some one in front of you to be saved first, and would not come yourself. I awoke in a dreadful state of mind, crying out that it was my fault, that it was because of me, that if it had been any one else you would have come.”
“How ungrateful you must have thought me,” said Ally, blushing more and more, “but of course I should have put the children first. You may be sure that is what I shall do if it should ever come true.”