The dead girl lay on her
back, so left by the water. Her dress had been caught between two great
bowlders near the pool of her drowning and the flood had thus caused her no
injury.
"God's goodness! how comed she here!" cried out Bartlett. "Oh, but this'll
be black news--black news; an' her brother drowned at sea likewise! Theer's
a hidden meanin' in it, I lay, if us awnly knawed." The lad who accompanied
Bartlett was shaking, and did not dare to look at the still figure which
lay so stiff and straight at their feet. Amos therefore bid him use his
legs, hasten to the farm, break the news, and dispatch a couple of men to
the coomb.
"I can pull up a hurdle an' wattle it with withys meantime," he said; "for
'tis allus well to have work for the hand in such a pass as this. Ban't no
good for me to sit an' look at her, poor fond wummon."
He busied himself with the hurdle accordingly, and when two of the hands
presently came down from Drift they found their burden ready for them.
The old, silent man called Gaffer Polglaze found sufficient excitement in
the tragedy to loosen a tongue which seldom wagged. He spat on his hands
and rubbed them together before seizing his end of the hurdle. Then he
spoke:
"My stars! to see maaster when he heard! He rolled all about as if he was
drunk. An' yet 'tis the bestest thing as could fall 'pon the gal. 'Er was
lookin' for the cheel in a month or so, they do say.
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