But she had no eyes for anything except her husband, and no other
thought than of the horrible peril in which he was placing himself.
Four men clung to the bottom of the ladder, and yet, with Dale's
weight half-way up to help them, could not for a moment keep it
steady. On top of the rick one of the tarpaulin sheets had broken
loose; the cruel wind was tearing beneath it, wrenching out pegs and
cordage, snatching at thatch-hackle, and making the stout ropes that
should have held the sheet hiss and dart like serpents.
It seemed to her that the rick was as high as Mont Blanc, and that
even on a placid summer day no one but a lunatic would want to scale
it. Then she screamed, and went rushing forward.
Dale, in the act of clambering from the top rung of the ladder, had
been blown off, and was hanging to a rope over the edge of the stack.
With extreme difficulty the men moved the ladder, and he succeeded in
getting on it again.
"Gi't up, sir. 'Tis mortally impossible." As well as Mavis, every one
of them shouted an entreaty that he would come down.
Probably he did not hear them, and certainly he did not obey them. He
went up, not down. Then for half an hour he fought like a madman with
the flapping sheet, and finally conquered it.
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