The roar of water
answering the thunder above it was to their ears Earth groaning against the
rod, and right well they knew that the pale torrent was drowning those
summer labors which represented money and food for the on-coming of the
long winter months. They stared, silent and dumb, under the ram; they knew
that the kernel of near a year's toil was riding away upon the livid
torrent; that the higher meadows, held absolutely safe, were half under
water now; that the flood tumbling under the blue fire most surely held
sheep and cattle in its depths; that tons of upland hay swam upon it; that,
like enough, dead men also turned and twisted there in a last mad journey
to the sea.
A passing belief that their labors might save the stack sprung up in the
breast of one alone. Uncle Chirgwin trusted Providence and his hempen ropes
and clothesline; but it was a childish hope, and, gazing open-mouthed upon
that swelling, hurtling cataract of roaring water, none shared it. An
almost continuous mist of livid light crossed and recrossed, festooned and
cut by its own crinkled sources, revealed the progress of the flood, and,
heedless of themselves, Uncle Chirgwin and his men watched the fate of the
stack, now rising very pale of hue above the water, seen through shining
curtains of rain. First the torrent tumbled and rose about it, and then a
sudden tremor and turning of the mass told that the rick floated.
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