XVIII
Miller Bond had long since found out, in an indirect way, who the gentleman was that met the hamlet prude Mary Shaw in the rickyard by the mill-pool. He had observed, too, that of late this gentleman had ceased to come, and he had heard through his assistant (who watched the machinery while Bond looked over the hatch) of Barnard’s frequent visits to Beechknoll.
It was a matter of common hamlet gossip how Miss Felise had thrown over Mr. Godwin “all of a sudden” and “took” to “that there idle Barnard fellow”; not much of a change for her either, but “hur be a flighty one, hur be,” was their comment.
The miller had noticed, too, that when Mary Shaw and Abner met in the rickyard, their courting generally ended in Mary’s having a burst of crying, sometimes passionately weeping, and becoming so convulsed and overcome that it was with difficulty he could soothe her.
One evening—it was Wednesday—after witnessing such a scene from behind the stubble-rick and elder-bush, the miller saw Abner and Mary start to go away, Mary still hanging upon him, and apparently sobbing. After they had gone the miller composed himself upon the log of timber, hoisted up his gun on his knees, and prepared to shoot the first rat that ventured out now he could do so without disturbing the lovers.
Two or three minutes afterwards he heard a slight cry and a great splash in the mill-pool, and jumped up in alarm to see what it could be. He had to run some yards before he could see down into the pool. Leaning over the fence he strained his short neck and saw Mary Shaw struggling and gasping in the water.
Some kind of shout or loud exclamation issued from his lips, and then, as if by mechanism, he put his gun to his shoulder and fired up in the air.
At the same moment Martial came up—looked over—exclaimed—tore off his coat, and then paused, for he remembered his heavy boots. They were laced and tied tightly; he got his penknife and slit the laces, kicked them off, stepped upon the fence, balanced himself a second, and sprang forward.
The miller, at the sound of the splash when Martial struck the surface, hurled his gun away and set up another shout. He then began dancing, stamping his feet up and down like a child in a rage.
Martial went down feet first, holding his breath; the water closed over him. In another second he rose and began to swim, and in half a minute—he had to go round a little to seize her properly—he had hold of poor Mary. She fainted immediately after he touched her.
Martial instantly swam with her towards the side of the pool, for a moment forgetting that he could not land on a perpendicular wall of chalk. As he neared the side he looked up and remembered that there were no means of exit from the pool, which was, in fact, a very large well. He began to tread water and paddle with one hand (holding Mary with the other) while he considered how to get out.
He could not see a way out; steep walls of chalk enclosed him on every side. Another face was now gazing down at him; the miller’s man had run up at the sound of the gun, expecting to see a dead rat, instead of which there were two human beings in a trap.
“Is there no way to get out?” said Martial.
“No, that there bean’t,” said the miller’s man. “There bean’t no way out. You be drownded.”
The miller himself stopped dancing with his feet, and now sucked the forefinger first of one hand and then of the other, staring the while without blinking at the pair in the water. First he thrust one finger in his mouth, and then the other, and pulled them out with a sucking sound. His shock head of red hair, as he strained his neck over the fence, was dimly reflected on the ripples of the pool. Martial’s movements sent ripples breaking against the cliffs of chalk.
So far as Martial could see there was not a root, nor a piece of ivy, nor any plant, nor even a blade of grass in a crevice to which he could cling. There was no hatch in the pool; it was outside where the water ran from a culvert into the mill-wheel trough.
So long as he could tread water, or swim to and fro, he should survive; as his strength decreased he must sink unless help came. The two fools looking down were evidently too stupid to assist him.
“Help!” shouted Martial at the top of his voice. “Help! help!” hoping someone passing might hear and bring the aid of intelligence to direct mere muscles. The perpendicular wall-like sides of chalk sent his voice straight up; it rose into the air instead of spreading laterally. No one could have heard at a short distance from the edge of the pool.
“Us can’t help,” said the miller’s man, stolidly looking down, with his arms crossed miller-fashion on the fence. “You be drownded.”
“Fetch someone else!” said Martial, angry and anxious.
“Bean’t no good. Bean’t nobody about.”
Aware that he could not possibly hold out very long with Mary’s dead-weight to support, Martial began to swim with her slowly round the pool, eagerly scanning the chalk walls for some hole or chink or ledge upon which he could rest his hand and so support himself. There was none. He tried to scrape a hole—the chalk crumbled a little, but was hard under the immediate surface; his nails would be worn to the quick, and even then he could not do it. He might perhaps have done it with his penknife, but he had dropped it on the grass after cutting his laces.
“Be quick!” he called. “Fetch someone—quick!”
“They be all gone to Jones’s sale,” said the miller’s man. “You won’t last long.”
Had not Martial
