Flood Read Free

at it. There were goblins in the hot burn and she had disturbed their nest. She opened her eyes, but was blind. Then, hair screaming still, she felt herself rising from the liquid. Her hair was on fire, and suddenly she was in brightness and air and was being sick, spewing up all the silt and the darkness. She was dragged to the bank and her hair stopped screaming. Voices rushed into her ears as the water rushed out. 'By Christ, Tom, that was close.' 'Aye, pulled her out by the pigtail.' 'She was down there a while, though.' 'Are you all right, Mary?' 'I saw them.
    It was Matty Duncan and Jock McLeod's boy.' 'Is she all right there, Tom? Should we fetch your mum?'

    Her dress clung to her like the dress of a rag-doll. Her stomach hurt and her eyes hurt and her head hurt, and she was shaking and crying and was afraid. She felt Tom touch her face, then she opened her eyes.

    Her mother listened to the story and then told her to go upstairs and change; she would be up in a minute to help her. Mary left her mother with Tom and climbed the narrow staircase to the room where she slept with her brother. She had a small room of her own, but it was used more as a cupboard due to the dampness of its walls and its bitter cold in winter. The mumbled voices downstairs were too quiet to be truly calm. Mary began crying again as she pulled the ruined dress from her body and sat on her bed. She had disobeyed her mother. She had gone near the hot burn without an adult, and now she would never be forgiven.
    Perhaps her father would spank her with the heavy leather belt. She had disobeyed her parents, whom she loved, and that was why she cried.

    She seemed to sit in her bedroom for a very long time, and she heard the front door opening and closing several times.
    She was trapped there. It was as if she had been told in school that someone was going to beat her, and having to go through the rest of the day in fear of the bell for going home.
    She stared at her dirty dress and sat and waited. Finally, a heavy noise on the stairs told her that her father was coming up. He opened the door and looked in on her. She was shivering, naked. He had the coal-dust still on him and his piece-bag slung over his shoulder. His eyes burned, but he came over and rubbed his daughter's hair. He asked if she was all right, and she nodded and sniffed.

    'Let me get washed then,' he said, 'and we'll clean you up and get you dressed.'

    There seemed a conspiracy in the house for the rest of the day, with no one mentioning what had happened. Her father washed her and helped her into her good dress and she sat by the fireside while he read a book. They were alone in the house. Much later, after her father had made some toast and jam and she had said that she was not hungry and still had not been scolded, the front door opened and closed quietly and Tom came in. He sat at the table with them and drank tea. Then Mary's mother came in, taking off her coat as she entered the living room.

    'By God, I told them,' she said. Her face was flushed and her hands fluttered about her as she made a fresh pot of tea.
    'I told them.'

    When the family were seated around the table, they began to talk. It seemed that Mary's mother had gone round to Mr Duncan's house and Mr McLeod's house and had had words with each of them. Tom smiled twice as his mother told her story, but his father was quick to admonish him on both occasions.

    Mary was made much of that evening, being allowed to stay up well past her bedtime. Neighbours came to sympathise and to find out just what Mrs Miller had done. These women sat with their arms folded tightly and listened carefully to their neighbour's narrative. They looked at the girl and smiled at her. By bedtime, Mary was aware that she was not to be scolded for her part in events. She went to bed with a lighter heart, but awoke twice during the night from a nightmare in which she was drowning again, but this time the faces above her were grim and