Free The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope Page B

Warden; her name, looking oddly familiar, was written on the title page in a thin, delicate hand. Kate riffled over the leaves idly, catching at a passage here and there:
    . . . and then came a night of great rains and wind, and in the midst of it the ferryman was awakened by a child's voice crying pitifully, "It is very late, and I am lost far away from my home, O come and carry me over the river." So he arose, and took his staff in his hand, and set the child on his shoulder, and went his way into the water; but ever as he went that water rose higher, and he felt the burden of the child grow heavier and yet heavier, as though he were carrying the whole weight of the world on his own back, until he cried out, "It is more than I can bear!" and then —  and then she broke off without finishing the story. She knew how it ended, it was one of the most familiar of all the legends, the sudden radiance of light surrounding the Child at the end of the crossing, the divine voice saying, "And your name henceforth shall be Christopher, the Christ-bearer, because you were moved by pity to carry your Lord tonight." But that had been in the morning of the world, when miracles rose out of the wayside grass as easily as larks; it was not to be expected that such a thing would happen again. She closed the book and went over to the window to see if the storm showed any signs of slackening off.
    The wind had quieted a little, but the rain was falling harder than ever. The line of stone discharge-spouts jutting from the roof gutters was choked and strangling with water. More water was running from every slate and tile and pane, sheeting down walls and buttresses, gathering in streams among the rocks of the hill, making its way to the flat lands around the village in the valley. The tranquil little river that wound through the corn fields to feed the mill weir had become a raging brown torrent.
    By the second day, the damp was steadily eating its way into the house, and a finger touching the velvet of a cushion left a spot. The rain continued to fall. Down in the valley, the river had swept away the mill weir and was pouring in floods over the fields through the broken bank. From the long gallery, Kate could see figures, dwarfed by the distance, toiling like ants with rocks and hurdles and logs and sacks of earth to close the gap and save what was left of the standing crops. There was no telling what might have happened in the little valley where the Holy Well lay, on the other side of the castle. The battlement walk that opened off the long gallery ran all the way around the old curtain wall until it joined the walk above the archway that overlooked the valley; but when she made her way there, staggering under the wind, it was only to find that the whole gorge was so full of mist and rain that she could not see beyond the Standing Stone.
    The third day the wind shifted towards the end of the afternoon, and the rain began to fall more and more softly, but by that time the change was too late to be of any use to the village. The waters were still coming down from the hills in floods, tearing out hurdle and log and earthwork, and spreading in a great widening sheet further and further over tile wreck of the grain.
    The morning of the fourth day was different. All that was left of the storm was a fleet of huge white clouds racing like splendid ships over the flawless blue of the sky, with their shadows racing below them on the drowned fields that sparkled in the sun. Elvenwood Hall threw open its windows and began to sort itself out in a fine bustle of kindling fires, flourishing brooms, running feet, and chattering laughter. Kate was forgotten in the confusion; nobody had any time to think of her. She took a breakfast apple from a fruit dish on the high table, and slipped through the door out onto the terrace.
    She glanced at the walk leading past Lord Richard's tower as she crossed the courtyard, and then turned aside — she was not wanted up