Part 71 (1/2)

Uncle Jack was right, for almost as he spoke we could hear voices shouting ”rezzyvoyer;” and for the moment we forgot our own troubles in the thought of the horrors that must have taken place up the vale.

But we could not stay where we were, half suffocated by the steam that rose, and, opening the door, which broke away half-burned through, we stood once more in the long workshop, which seemed little changed, save that here and there a black chasm yawned in the floor, among which we had to thread our way to where the stout door had been.

That and the staircase were gone, so that our only chance was to descend by lowering ourselves and dropping to the ground.

Just then we heard the splas.h.i.+ng of feet in the yard, and a voice we recognised as Pannell cried:

”Mebbe they've got away. Ahoy there, mesters! Mester Jacob!”

”Ahoy!” I shouted; and a ringing cheer went up from twenty throats.

”We're all right,” I cried, only nearly smothered. ”Can you get a short ladder?”

”Ay, lad,” cried another familiar voice; and another shouted, ”Owd Jones has got one;” and I was sure it was Gentles who spoke.

”How's the place, Pannell?” cried Uncle d.i.c.k, leaning out of one of the windows.

”So dark, mester, I can hardly see, but fire's put right out, and these here buildings be aw reight, but wheer the smithies and furnace was is n.o.bbut ground.”

”Swept away?”

”Pretty well burned through first, mester, and then the watter came and washed it all clear. Hey but theer's a sight of mischief done, I fear.”

A short ladder was soon brought, and the boxes and papers were placed in safety in a neighbouring house, after which in the darkness we tramped through the yard, to find that it was inches deep in mud, and that the flood had found our mill stout enough to resist its force; but the half-burned furnace-house, the smithies, and about sixty feet of tall stone wall had been taken so cleanly away that even the stones were gone, while the mill next to ours was cut right in two.

There was not a vestige of fire left, so, leaving our further inspection to be continued in daylight, we left a couple of men as watchers, and were going to join the hurrying crowd, when I caught Uncle d.i.c.k's arm.

”Well?” he exclaimed.

”Did you see where those men went as they got off the raft?”

”They seemed to be climbing down into the hollow beside the river,” he said:

”Yes,” I whispered with a curious catching of the breath, ”and then the flood came.”

He gripped my hand, and stood thinking for a few moments.

”It is impossible to say,” he cried at last. ”But come along, we may be of some service to those in trouble.”

In that spirit we went on down to the lower part of the town, following the course of the flood, and finding fresh horrors at every turn.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

EIGHT YEARS LATER.

Fancy the horrors of that night! The great dam about which one of my uncles had expressed his doubts when we visited it the previous year, and of which he had spoken as our engine, had given way in the centre of the vast earthen wall like a railway embankment. A little crack had grown and grown--the trickling water that came through had run into a stream, then into a river, and then a vast breach in the embankment was made, and a wall of water had rushed down the valley swiftly as a fast train, carrying destruction before it.

The ruin of that night is historical, and when after a few hours we made our way up the valley, it was to see at every turn the devastation that had been caused. Mills and houses had been swept away as if they had been corks, strongly-built works with ma.s.sive stone walls had crumbled away like cardboard, and their machinery had been carried down by the great wave of water, stones, gravel, and mud.

Trees had been lifted up by their roots; rows of cottages cut in half; banks of the valley carved out, and for miles and miles, down in the bottom by the course of the little river, the face of the country was changed. Here where a beautiful garden had stretched down to the stream was a bed of gravel and sand; there where verdant meadows had lain were sheets of mud; and in hundreds of places trees, plants, and the very earth had been swept clear away down to where there was only solid rock.