She Brought a Doctor’s Bag to the Duke’s Estate — By Winter, the Village Was Grateful
Chapter 16
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"You had," said Elspeth. "Bring your case and do as Mrs. Bellamy tells you."To his everlasting credit, he did.They went up the hill in the dark, 40 men and more with lanterns and spades and picks, the Duke at the front of them with the plan buttoned inside his coat. By the time they reached the slime pond, the rain was coming sideways, and the gray water behind the bank was within a foot of its crest. Little streams were already finding their way through the raw earth of it, and the whole face of the bank shone wet in the lantern light as if it were sweating.They dug along the line of the old cut where the plan said it lay. They dug for an hour and found nothing but peat and stones. The water rose.It was Josiah Harcourt who showed them where to dig. Nobody saw him come; he was simply there at the edge of the lantern light, hatless, with the rain running down his round face, and he looked older than he had looked two months before."The third marker stone," he said. "Not here. 40 yards along, where the old culvert runs under the bank. The company wanted it filled. I had them stop it with turf instead, and cover it. I told myself that one day I'd have it opened again." He looked at the Duke. "I never did."The Duke looked at him for one moment. Then he turned to the men. "40 yards. Bring the lights."They found the marker stone, and under three feet of earth they found the stone mouth of the culvert packed tight with old turves. The men cleared it with their hands and their picks—the Duke in the trench up to his knees among them, Thomas Rookwood beside him, the miners from Hartside working on the far side.A young miner named Ned Dodd, Polly's uncle, who had helped build the bank six years before, went into the culvert mouth with a short pick to break out the last of the plug. He broke it.The water came through all at once with a roar like a beast let out of a cage. It took Ned off his feet and threw him down the culvert into the dark. Thomas went in after him with a rope round his waist, and the Duke and five men held the rope; and when they hauled them both out together, Thomas was half-drowned, and Ned Dodd was not breathing.Elspeth knelt over him in the mud. She did everything her father had ever taught her, everything the Humane Society printed in its little notices on the doors of riverside inns: she turned him and cleared his mouth; she chafed his limbs; she breathed into him. Mrs. Bellamy knelt opposite her, and Dr. Strand held the lantern, and nobody told her to stop.After a long time, Mrs. Bellamy put her own old hand over Elspeth's. "He's gone, lass," she said. "He was gone before they pulled him out. You've to let him go."