“The floods are coming down,” said Hern.
If you are born by the River, you know its ways. “Yes,” I said, “and they’re going to be huge this time.”
Before we could say more, the back door crashed open and Gull came out. He came out stumbling, feeling both sides of the door and not seeming to know quite where he was.
“The River,” he said. “I felt the River.” He stumbled over to the bank. I put out both hands to catch him because it looked as if he were going to walk right over the edge. But he stopped on the bank and swayed about a little. “I can hear it,” he said. “I’ve dreamt about it. The floods are coming.” He began to cry, like Robin sometimes does, without making a sound. Tears rolled down his face.
I looked at Hern, and Hern looked at me, and we did not know what to do. Robin settled it by racing out of the back door and grabbing Gull in both arms. She hauled him away inside, saying, “I’m going to put him to bed. It’s frightening.”
“The floods are coming down,” I said.
“I know,” Robin called over her shoulder. “I can feel them. I’ll send Duck out.” She pushed Gull through the door and slammed it.
Hern and I pulled the boat up. It was horribly hard work because it was stuck a long way down in the mud. Luckily Hern is far stronger than he looks. We got it up over the edge of the bank in the end. By that time the sick green water was racing in swelling snatches, some of them so high that they slopped into the grooves the boat had left.
“I think this is going to be the highest ever,” Hern said. “I don’t think we should leave it here, do you?”
“No,” I said. “We’d better get it into the woodshed.” The woodshed is a room that joins the house, and the house is on the rising ground beyond the bank. Hern groaned, but he agreed with me. We got three of our last remaining logs to make rollers, and we rolled that heavy boat uphill, just the two of us. We had it at the woodshed when the woodshed door opened and Duck came out.
“You did arrive quickly!” I said.
“Sorry,” said Duck. “We’ve been putting Gull to bed. He went straight to sleep. It’s awful having him like this. I think there’s nothing inside him!” Then Duck began to cry. Hern’s arm tangled with mine as we both tried to get them round Duck.
“He’ll get better,” I said.
“Sleep will do him good,” Hern said. I think we were talking to ourselves as much as to Duck.
“Gull’s head of the family now,” Duck said, and he howled. I envy both boys for being able to howl.
Hern said, “Stop it, Duck. There’s the biggest ever flood coming down. We’ve got to get things inside.” The River was hissing by then, swish and swish, as it began to spread and fill. The bad smell of winter was mixed with a new damp smell, which was better. I could feel the ground shaking under us, because of the weight of water in the distance.
“I can smell it,” said Duck. “But I knew there was time to be miserable. I’ll stop now.” And he did stop, though he sniffed for the next hour.
We jammed the boat into the woodshed. I said we ought to bring the hens in there too. Hens are funny things. They seem so stupid, yet I swear our hens knew about the floods. When we looked for them, they had all gone through the hedge to the higher ground above Aunt Zara’s house and we could not get them back. They would not even come for corn. Nor would the cow go into the garden at first. Usually her one thought was to get in there and eat our cabbages. We pushed and pulled and prodded her, because we were sure she was not safe on the Riverbank, and tethered her where she could eat the weeds in the vegetable patch.
“She’ll eat those cabbages somehow,” said Duck. “Look at her looking at them.”
We were pulling up all the cabbages near her when Robin came out. “Oh good,” she said. “Pull enough for at least a week. I think the floods will be right up here by tomorrow. They feel enormous.”
We ran around picking cabbages and onions and the last of the carrots and dumped them on the floor of the scullery.
“No,” said Robin. “Up on the shelves. The water’s coming in here.”
She is the eldest, and she knows the River best. We did as she said. By this time it was getting dark. The River was making a long, rumbling sound. I watched it while Robin milked the cow. There was brown water as strong as the muscles in your leg piling through between the banks. The mud was covered already. I could see the line of yellow froth bubbles rising under the bank as I watched. The colour of the water was yellower and yellower, as it always is in the floods, but it was a dark yellow, which is not usual. The air was full of the clean, earthy smell the floods bring. I thought it was stronger than usual, and sharper.
“There’s been different weather up in the mountains where the River comes from, that’s all,” Hern said crossly. “Shall I wake Gull up and give him some milk?”
Gull was so fast asleep that we could not wake him. We left him and had supper ourselves. We felt strange – half excited because of the rumble of the water outside, half heavy with misery. We wanted sweet things to eat, but when we had them, we found we wanted salt. We were trying to make Robin cook some of the pickled trout when we heard an odd noise. We stopped talking and listened. At first there was only the River, booming and rushing. Then we heard someone scratching on the back door – scratching, not knocking.
“I’ll go,” said Hern, and he seized the carving knife on his way to the back door.
He opened it and there was Uncle Kestrel again, half in the dark, with his finger to his mouth for quiet. We twisted round in our seats and looked at him as he limped in. He had neatened himself up since he was last here, but he was still shaking.
“I thought you were the Heathen,” Hern said.
“They’d be better company for you,” said Uncle Kestrel. He smiled. He took a jam tart from Robin and said, “Thanks, my love,” but that did not seem natural any longer. He was frightening. “Zwitt’s been at my house,” he said, “calling your family Heathen enchanters.”
“We’re not,” said Duck. “Everyone knows we’re not!”
“Do they?” asked Uncle Kestrel. He leant forwards over the table, so that the lamp caught a huge bent shadow of him and threw it trembling on the wall, across shelves and cups and plates. It looked so threatening with its long, wavering nose and chin that I think I watched it most of the time. It still scares me. “Do they?” said Uncle Kestrel. “There are men in Shelling who have seen Heathens with their own eyes, and who remember your mother – lovely girl she was, my Robin – looked just like the Heathen. Then Zwitt says you dealt ungodly with the River—”
“That’s nonsense!” Hern said. He got angrier with everything Uncle Kestrel said. It was good of Uncle Kestrel not to take offence.
“You should have gone over to the old mill by night, lad,” he said, “like I do when I go for mussels. And it’s a pity neither you nor your cow got the sickness the River sent.”
“But we all got it!” Robin protested. “Duck was sick all one night.”
“But he lived when others his age died,” said Uncle Kestrel. “There’s no arguing with Zwitt, Robin, apple of my eye. He has the whole of Shelling behind him. If Duck died, they’d have thought up a reason for that. Don’t you see? Do none of you see?”
The huge shadow shifted on the wall as he looked round the four of us. I saw that we seemed to be strangers in our own village, but I had known that before. So had Robin from the look of her. Duck looked quite blank. Hern almost shrieked, “Oh, yes, I see all right! Now my father’s dead, Zwitt’s not afraid of us any more!”
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