Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead Read Free

People can laugh at it; but it’s jolly comfortable.”
    He walked across the room to the shabby old cottage piano. Some of the ivories were missing and the ones that remained were yellow. He stood strumming for a few moments, then sat on the round plush stool and played some rather rollicking music which appeared to cheer him up quite considerably. Then his eyes fell on the mantelpiece. It was draped with dark green velvet, complete with pompoms, and on it were a half-empty bottle of beer and a dirty glass with a few dead flies floating about. He emptied the flies into the overflowing ash tray, and poured out a glass of beer. It was rather flat but not undrinkable. As he drank it, rocking backwards and forwards on his toes, he said to himself:
    “After lunch I’ll go out in the boat again; I might see something interesting. There should be a lot of interesting things around after a flood like this. Surely in all this water someone must have drowned. I’ll take Hattie with me; she’s always game for anything. Emma’s strange, damn queer like her mother; but Hattie is so jolly, much the best of the lot. Of course she isn’t my child, I don’t believe in all that village nonsense about her being black because Jenny died before she was born; it’s just an old wives’ tale. The blackness didn’t notice so much when she was born; but it’s unmistakable now. How on earth Jenny found a black lover here, in this lonely village, that is what beats me.”
    There was a great booming of the gong and his thoughts became disturbed; so he hurriedly finished his stale beer and went downstairs, where he found his family having lunch in the old nursery, which was comparatively dry. It was some years since he had been in the room. It was very dark with fir trees pushing in at the window. It had been his nursery when he was a child, and he was amused to see the wallpaper and furniture still the same, and the bow-fronted chest of drawers, the scrap-book screen, the old red couch with the springs hanging down below, and the tallboy which had got him into trouble because he kept frogs in the top drawer. He looked round the room with great satisfaction, and ate his gammon and green peas with his family around him, and felt content.
    As the day went on the flood began to subside. It left the Willoweeds’ house, and in its place was mud and river weed and a deep smell of dampness. The children set stones in the garden to mark the flood’s retreat. The garden sloped down to the river and by the evening half of it was visible again, the flowers lying wet and heavy on the ground, the grass a verdant green. A few strange dead objects lay about. Old Ives collected them and put them in the stokehole. Dennis sadly watched him pushing in a peacock.
    “Are you sure it’s dead, Old Ives?” he asked.
    “Of course the poor bugger’s dead,” he muttered, and slammed the door on it. The remaining peacock began to screech. There was thunder in the air, and the sky had become yellow and grey.
    “There, I said it would rain, and rain it will,” said the old man. “That peacock don’t half hum. It must be the feathers burning.”
    He opened the stokehole door a chink and a great smoke and stench came out. Dennis said:
    “I think it’s time I went to bed now. Good night, Old Ives, I’m glad your ducks came back.”
    “Don’t go yet, boy! Look at this little puss I found,” and he produced a dead, sodden kitten from his pocket, the ginger fur had come away from its tail and the bone was exposed. Dennis had gone; so the kitten followed the peacock into the stokehole.
    During the night the storm broke. The grandmother woke the children and maids who were sleeping quite peacefully.
    “The house will be struck. Come to the cellars!” she cried, “Come to the cellars!”
    The children were dragged down to the cellars which were completely filled with water, and everyone became very wet. Then they were herded into the large stone kitchen, and