'Oh, no! Too happy, by far too happy, Mrs. Ridd. Inever knew rest or peace before, or met with real kindness. But I cannot be so ungrateful, I cannot be so wicked, as to bring you all into deadly peril, for my sake alone. Let me go: you must not pay this great price for my happiness.'
'Dear child, we are paying no price at all,' replied my mother, embracing her; 'we are not threatened for your sake only. Ask John, he will tell you. He knows every bit about politics, and this is a political matter.'
Dear mother was rather proud in her heart, as well as terribly frightened, at the importance now accruing to Plover's Barrows farm; and she often declared that it would be as famous in history as the Rye House, or the Meal-tub, or even the great black box, in which she was a firm believer: and even my knowledge of politics could not move her upon that matter. 'Such things had happened before,' she would say, shaking her head with its wisdom, 'and why might they not happen again?
Women would be women, and men would be men, to the end of the chapter; and if she had been in Lucy Water's place, she would keep it quiet, as she had done'; and then she would look round, for fear, lest either of her daughters had heard her; 'but now, can you give me any reason, why it may not have been so? You are so fearfully positive, John: just as men always are.'
'No,' I used to say; 'I can give you no reason, why it may not have been so, mother. But the question is, if it was so, or not; rather than what it might have been.
And, I think, it is pretty good proof against it, that what nine men of every ten in England would only too gladly believe, if true, is nevertheless kept dark from them.' 'There you are again, John,' mother would reply, 'all about men, and not a single word about women. If you had any argument at all, you would own that marriage is a question upon which women are the best judges.' 'Oh!' I would groan in my spirit, and go;leaving my dearest mother quite sure, that now at last she must have convinced me. But if mother had known that Jeremy Stickles was working against the black box, and its issue, I doubt whether he would have fared so well, even though he was a visitor. However, she knew that something was doing and something of importance;and she trusted in God for the rest of it. Only she used te tell me, very seriously, of an evening, 'The very least they can give you, dear John, is a coat of arms. Be sure you take nothing less, dear; and the farm can well support it.'
But lo! I have left Lorna ever so long, anxious to consult me upon political matters. She came to me, and her eyes alone asked a hundred questions, which Irather had answered upon her lips than troubled her pretty ears with them. Therefore I told her nothing at all, save that the attack (if any should be) would not be made on her account; and that if she should hear, by any chance, a trifle of a noise in the night, she was to wrap the clothes around her, and shut her beautiful eyes again. On no account, whatever she did, was she to go to the window. She liked my expression about her eyes, and promised to do the very best she could and then she crept so very close, that I needs must have her closer; and with her head on my breast she asked,--'Can't you keep out of this fight, John?'
'My own one,' I answered, gazing through the long black lashes, at the depths of radiant love; 'I believe there will be nothing: but what there is I must see out.'
'Shall I tell you what I think, John? It is only a fancy of mine, and perhaps it is not worth telling.'
'Let us have it, dear, by all means. You know so much about their ways.'
'What I believe is this, John. You know how high the rivers are, higher than ever they were before, and twice as high, you have told me. I believe that Glen Doone is flooded, and all the houses under water.'
'You little witch,' I answered; 'what a fool I must be not to think of it! Of course it is: it must be. The torrent from all the Bagworthy forest, and all the valleys above it, and the great drifts in the glen itself, never could have outlet down my famous waterslide. The valley must be under water twenty feet at least. Well, if ever there was a fool, I am he, for not having thought of it.'
'I remember once before,' said Lorna, reckoning on her fingers, 'when there was heavy rain, all through the autumn and winter, five or it may be six years ago, the river came down with such a rush that the water was two feet deep in our rooms, and we all had to camp by the cliff-edge. But you think that the floods are higher now, I believe I heard you say, John.'
'I don't think about it, my treasure,' I answered; 'you may trust me for understanding floods, after our work at Tiverton. And I know that the deluge in all our valleys is such that no living man can remember, neither will ever behold again. Consider three months of snow, snow, snow, and a fortnight of rain on the top of it, and all to be drained in a few days away! And great barricades of ice still in the rivers blocking them up, and ponding them. You may take my word for it, Mistress Lorna, that your pretty bower is six feet deep.'
