Seite:Marsh Hallig 1856.djvu/276

276THE HALLIG.

but loving look at its parents, slept on quietly as before.
They spoke little, but sat by each other on the heavy
oak table, which, being an heir-loom of the parsonage,
had often before felt the sea around it ; and at every
surge which shook the foundations of the house, they
pressed closer to each other. In the course of the next
half hour, every box and chest in the house was afloat ;
and the water had risen to the top of the table. Now
they were forced to leave their position, and made to
the garret stairs. But before they had reached them,
the waves struck with a noise like thunder against the
door on the west side of the house, which gave way,
and with it a portion of the wall of the dwelling, forc-
ing in a large beam which broke down the stairs with a
fearful crash. In bewildered terror, the unhappy pair
stood for some moments motionless and breathless ;
they embraced each other closely, and hid their deadly
pale faces, each on the breast of the other. Just then,
they heard loud lamentations near them ; and from the
fragment of the roof which the beam brought with it,
and which fell to pieces in an instant, a neighbor, whose
wharf stood only a short distance from the parsonage,
was, with his wife, thrown in beside them.
  "My child, my child," screamed the poor woman, in
the most heart-rending tone when she recovered from
her first bewilderment. The child had been fastened
to a bundle of hay, as the father had foreseen the de-
struction of the house, and the unhappy parents did
not know whether it had been crushed by the falling of
the wall, or was floating about in the water.
  "My child, my child," cried the mother again and
again, and the father joined in the lament. Both for-