Erema; Or, My Father's Sin

by R. D. Blackmore

Knowing what men are concerning “female efforts,” I got out of the strong man's way, although there was plenty of room for me. What he wanted to do was plain enough—to dig a trench down the empty bed of the Moon River, deep enough to drain that pit before the stream came down again.

“Never thought to run a race against my own old dam,” he said, as he stopped for a moment to recover breath. “Us never knows what us may have to do. Old dam must be a'most busting now. But her's sound enough, till her beginneth to run over.”

I did not say a word, because it might have done some mischief, but I could not help looking rather anxiously up stream, for fear of the water coming down with a rush, as it very soon must do. Master Withypool had been working, not as I myself would have done, from the lips of the dark pit downward, but from a steep run some twenty yards below, where there was almost a little cascade when the river was full flowing; from this he had made his channel upward, cutting deeper as he came along, till now, at the brink of the obstinate pool, his trench was two feet deep almost. I had no idea that any man could work so with a shovel, which seems such a clumsy tool compared with a spade: but a gentleman who knows the country and the people told me that, with their native weapon, Moonites will do as much digging in an hour as other folk get through in an hour and a half with a spade. But this may be only, perhaps, because they are working harder.

“Now,” said Master Withypool at last, standing up, with a very red face, and desiring to keep all that unheeded—“now, miss, to you it belongeth to tap this here little cornder, if desirable. Plaise to excoose of me going up of bank to tell 'e when the wet cometh down again.”

“Please to do nothing of the sort,” I answered, knowing that he offered to stand out of sight from a delicate dread of intrusion. “Please to tap the pool yourself, and stay here, as a witness of what we find in it.”

“As you plaise, miss, as you plaise. Not a moment for to lose in arguing. Harken now, the water is atopping of our dam. Her will be here in five minutes.”

With three or four rapid turns of his shovel, which he spun almost as fast as a house-maid spins a mop, he fetched out the plug of earth severing his channel from the deep, reluctant hole. And then I saw the wisdom of his way of working: for if he had dug downward from the pool itself, the water would have followed him all the way, and even drowned his tool out of its own strokes; whereas now, with a swirl and a curl of ropy mud, away rushed the thick, sluggish, obstinate fluid, and in less than two minutes the hole was almost dry.

The first thing I saw was my golden eagle, lodged about half-way down the slope on a crust of black sludge, from which I caught it up and presented it to Master Withypool, as a small token and record of his kindness; and to this day he carries it upon his Sunday watch chain.

“I always am lucky in finding things,” I exclaimed, while he watched me, and the up stream too, whence a babble of water was approaching. “As sure as I live I have found it!”

“No doubt about your living, miss. And the Captain were always lively. But what have your bright eyes hit upon? I see nort for the life of me.”