THE seven callers came as threatened, and Hilda began to think that perhaps there was some kind of companionship possible in the wilds of Southern California. She was delighted with these young English fellows, and sat in the midst of them, laughing at their fun, listening to their stories, and answering their eager questions about the dear old country for which they all longed.
“How does the Strand look?” asked Graham.
“Does Tottenham Court Road seem the same as ever?” asked Lauderdale.
“Has Park Lane changed at all?” asked Holles, putting on airs of great superiority.
In spite of his recent illness, he was in capital spirits, and seemed to be much liked by his companions. “Yes, I’ve been quite ill,” he said, in answer to Hilda’s inquiries; “but Lauderdale nursed me beautifully, and made me drink about a dozen bottles of Elliman’s embrocation, and then I got well enough to write several parting letters to my friends in England, and to make my will. And that’s a very puzzling thing to do satisfactorily when you have many valuable things to leave. I left my pipe first to Lauderdale, then to Graham, then to Bob, and then to Ben Overleigh, and finally I kept it for myself!”
“You ought to have kept your rifle for yourself,” Hilda said graciously, “though I am glad you did not. I am delighted to have it from you, and hope to do it justice.”
“A rifle is a very handy thing to have in this country,” he answered. “One may want it at any moment for a coyote, or a jack-rabbit, or a Mexican.”
“Or perhaps a deer!” suggested Hilda, slyly.
They all laughed at that, and Jesse Holles as heartily as any one, and then Ben said he thought they ought to be starting home. It was evident that none of them wanted to go, and Holles, being particularly fond of music, was looking at the piano; but Ben seemed anxious about the weather, and insisted on their leaving at once with him. They called him the High Binder, explaining to Hilda the exact meaning of a High Binder, and his mysterious and subtle influence over his Chinese compatriots, whom he ruled with an iron rod.
“Just see how we all quail before him,” said Holles, who had been talking incessantly the whole evening; “and no doubt you’ve observed how speechless we are in his presence. He has only to wag his pig-tail and we go flat on our faces at once.”
“Don’t be such a confounded ass,” said Ben, laughing. “Come along, boys.”
“All right, man alive,” said Holles, “but at least let me finish this piece of cake first. We don’t get cake like this at your place, Ben. Do you know, Mrs. Strafford, when we want to kill coyotes, we get Ben to make us some of his best sponge-rusks. That does the trick at once!”
“Why don’t you give them to the deer also?” suggested Hilda, mischievously. There was a shout of laughter at this, and Robert lit the lantern, and opened the door.
“It’s raining, boys,” he said; “and what’s more, it is coming on harder.”
“Hurrah for California!” sang out Graham; “we shall all make our fortunes.”
“Yes,” said Robert Strafford, “we shall all be saved if the country gets a thorough good drenching. But you will be pretty well sprinkled by the time you reach home.”
“Never mind,” replied Holles, cheerily. “I’m the only delicate one, you know, and the others won’t take much harm, being of coarser fibre. And I have nothing on to spoil except the High Binder’s tie, which I will put in my pocket. So good-night, Mrs. Strafford, and three cheers for yourself and Bob and dear old England.”
The High Binder and the seven other callers gave three ringing cheers and cantered off to their homes. Long before they reached their destinations, the storm broke forth with unbridled fury. The rain poured down in torrents, gaining in force and rage every moment. The wind suddenly rose, and all but swept away the riders and their horses, and shook to its very foundation the frail little frame-house where Robert and Hilda were watching by the log-fire, listening to the cracking and creaking and groaning of the boards. The wind rose higher and higher. It seemed as though the little house must assuredly be caught up and hurled headlong. Now and then Nellie got up and howled, and Hilda started nervously.
“It’s all right,” Robert said reassuringly. “The wind will soon drop, and as for the rain, we have wanted it badly. We should all have been ruined this year, if the wet season had not set in. It’s all right, Nell. Lie down, old girl.”
But the wind did not drop. Hour after hour it raged and threatened, and together with the tremendous downpouring of the rain, and the rushing of the water in streams over the ground, made a deafening tumult.
“I wish we had kept those boys,” Robert said once or twice. “It is not fit for any one to be out on such a night. When these storms come,” he added, “I always feel so thankful that Ben urged me to buy land on the hill-slopes rather than in the valley. Three years ago there was fearful damage done in the valley. One of the ranchers had eight acres of olives completely ruined by the floods from the river. You must see the river to-morrow. You saw it yesterday, didn’t you? Well, you will not recognise it after a day or two if the rain continues. And from the verandah you will hear it roaring like the ocean.”
Later on he said:
“I rather wish I hadn’t filled up my reservoir so full with flume-water. It never struck me to make allowances for the rain coming, idiot that I am. But there is a good deal of seepage going on, and I thought I might as well fill it up to just below the overflow.”
“You are not anxious about it?” she asked kindly.
“No, no,” he said, cheerfully; “but I shall go out early to-morrow morning, and raise the flood-gate, just to be well on the safe side. One can’t be too careful about reservoirs. They are the very devil if the dam bursts. But mine is as solid as a fortress. I’d stake my life on that. I worked like ten navvies over that earth dam. I used to feel rather like that man in Victor Hugo’s ‘Toilers of the Sea.’ Do you remember how he slaved over his self-imposed task?”
“Poor old Bob,” she said, bending over him, and speaking in a gentler voice than was her wont, “and you are not in the least fit for such hard work. I believe you have worn yourself out; and all for me, and I, if you only knew, so little worthy of it.”
“I wanted our little ranch to be just as compact as possible,” he said, “so that I might offer to you the best I could in this distant land. As for myself, I am perfectly well, now you’ve come out to me: only I am always wishing that I could have made a home for you in the old country. I never forget it whatever I am doing.”
He seemed to be waiting for an answer, but Hilda was silent, and when at last she spoke, it was about her seven callers, and the next moment there was a terrible blast of wind, and the door was blown in and hurled with a crash to the ground. After that, their whole attention was taken up in trying to keep out the rain, and in securing the windows, until at last, worn out with their long watch, they slept.
Hilda dreamed of England, and of everything she had left there. She dreamed that she heard Robert saying: “And next year there will be the lemons to be cured.” “Next year,” she answered, and her heart sank.
Robert dreamed of the eight acres of olives ruined by the floods three years ago, and of his own ranch situated so safely on the hill-slope, and of his reservoir. He dreamed he was still working at it, still strengthening the earth dam, and still scraping out the cañon so as to have room for about five hundred thousand gallons of water.
“HE LIFTED A PIECE OF IRON PIPING.”
“It’s nearly done,” he said; “about three weeks more, and then I’m through with it.”
At six o’clock he woke up with a start, and found the storm unabated in strength and fury. Suddenly he remembered about his reservoir, and, seized with a sudden panic, he flung out of the house, and, fighting his way through the rain and wind, crossed the ranch, and tore up the trail which led to the reservoir.
For one second he stood paralysed.
The water was just beginning to flow over the earth dam. He had come too late, and he knew it. He lifted a piece of iron piping which lay there at hand, and he tried to knock out the flood-gate, but the mischief was done. In less than ten minutes, the water had cut a hole five feet deep in the dam, and was rushing down the ranch, carving for itself a gully which widened and deepened every second.
In the blinding rain and wind Robert Strafford stood helpless and watched the whole of the dam give way: he watched the water tearing madly over the best part of his ranch: he saw numbers of his choicest lemon-trees rooted up and borne away: he saw the labour of weeks and months flung, as it were, in his face. And he was helpless. It was all over in half an hour, and still he lingered there, as though rooted to the spot,—drenched by the rain, blown by the wind, and unconscious of everything except this bitter disappointment. But when his mind began to work again, he thought of Hilda: how it was through him that she had left her home and her surroundings and all her many interests, and had come to him to this far-off country, to this loveless land, to this starved region—yes, to this starved region, where people were longing and pining for even a passing throb of the old life, for even a glance at a Devonshire lane or a Surrey hill; for some old familiar scene of beauty or some former sensation of mental or artistic satisfaction; for something—no matter what—but just something from the old country which would feel like the touch of a loved hand on a bowed head. He was holding out his arms, and his heart and whole being were leaping towards the blessèd land which had nurtured him: even as tiny children cry out for their mother, and can be comforted and satisfied by her alone. Ah, his thoughts of, and his desires for his old home, had broken down the barrier of control, and were tearing wildly onwards like that raging torrent yonder. And the more he desired the dear old country and thought of it, all the more bitterly did he reproach himself for taking Hilda away from it, for urging her to come and cut herself off from the things most worth having in life—and for what? To share his exile, and his loneliness, and his failure. That was all he had to offer her, and he might have known it from the beginning, and if he could not save himself, at least he might have spared her.
At last he turned away suddenly, and, battling with the storm, made his way home. Hilda ran out to meet him.
“Robert,” she said, seeing his pale face, “I’ve been so anxious—what has happened?—what is the matter?”
“Do you hear that noise?” he said excitedly; “do you hear the roar of that torrent? It is our reservoir let loose over our ranch. How do you like having married a man who has failed in everything?”