Mehalah: A Story of the Salt Marshes by S. Baring-Gould

Author:S. Baring-Gould [Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anboco
Published: 2017-03-19T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVI.

IN NEW QUARTERS.

When the boat reached the landing place for Red Hall, Mrs. Sharland was found to have been so overcome with terror, and numbed with frost, as to be unable to walk. She moaned under her blankets, but made no effort to rise. Elijah was obliged to carry her out of the boat upon the sea-wall, and then with the assistance of Mehalah she was conveyed to the house in their arms. Neither spoke, and Mrs. Sharland's lamentations, over various articles she had prized, and which she feared were lost or destroyed, remained unattended to.

The old woman was wrapped up from the cold in a blanket that enfolded her entire person and head, and she kept working an aperture for her face, whilst being carried, not so much to obtain air, as to give vent to queries.

'My green bombazine,—where is it?'

The folds of the blanket closed over the face. The fingers worked at them, till they had made a gap.

'Is the toad-jug saved?' at the same time a point of a nose and a thin finger emerged from the wraps.

'There was a dozen of Lowestoft soup-dishes!' A jerk as she was being lifted over a rail sent her head and shoulders deeper into the blanket, and it was some minutes before she had grubbed a hole for herself again.

'The warming-pan! I can't go to bed unless I have the sheets aired.'

A spring across a dyke buried the old woman again 'in woollen.' She emerged only as the house was reached to exclaim 'My rum!'

'You've come where there's lots of that,' said Elijah, and he indicated with his chin to Mehalah to carry her up the steps into the hall.

A red fire was glowing and painting the walls. The great room was warm, and Mrs. Sharland battled out of her envelopes as soon as she became aware that she was under cover.

'Take me to bed,' she said; 'my legs are frozen. I can't go a step. Oh! is the toad-jug saved?'

'I will carry her now,' said Elijah. 'You light a candle, Glory, and follow me.'

He took the old woman over his shoulder, and led the way up the stairs. Mehalah followed with a light she had kindled at the hearth. He conducted into a bed-room, comfortably furnished, with white curtains to the windows, and a low tester bed in the corner.

'Light the fire,' he ordered, and Mehalah applied the candle to the straw and chips in the grate. Presently the flames were dancing up the chimney, and making the whole chamber glow. The old woman was laid on the bed.

'This looks comfortable,' said she; 'just as if you was prepared for us.'

'I was prepared for you. Everything was ready. Glory knows that I have been expecting you and her. I told her she must come, sooner or later. Sooner or later the same roof must cover both, as sooner or later the same grave will hold us both. She would fight me, and would not come to me, but her destiny is stronger than her will.

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