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‘It can’t be ‘elped,’ said Rhoda. ‘It’s just what it does do once in just so often. We’d better go back.’

All earth under foot was sliding in a thousand liquid noises towards the hoarse brook. Somebody wailed from the house: ”Fraid o’ the water! Come ‘ere! ‘Fraid o’ the water!’

‘That’s Jimmy. Wet always takes ‘im that way,’ she explained. The idiot charged into them, shaking with terror.

‘Brave Jimmy! How brave of Jimmy! Come into the hall. What Jimmy got now?’ she crooned. It was a sodden note which ran: ‘Dear Rhoda–Mr. Lotten, with whom I rode home this afternoon, told me that if this wet keeps up, he’s afraid the fish-pond he built last year, where Coxen’s old mill-dam was, will go, as the dam did once before, he says. If it does it’s bound to come down the brook. It may be all right, but perhaps you had better look out. C.S.’

‘If Coxen’s dam goes, that means…. I’ll ‘ave the drawing-room carpet up at once to be on the safe side. The claw-‘ammer is in the libery.’

‘Wait a minute. Sidney’s gates are out, you said?’

‘Both. He’ll need it if Coxen’s pond goes…. I’ve seen it once.’

‘I’ll just slip down and have a look at Sidney. Light the lantern again, please, Rhoda.’

‘You won’t get him to stir. He’s been there since he was born. But she don’t know anything. I’ll fetch your waterproof and some top-boots.’

”Fraid o’ the water! ‘Fraid o’ the water!’ Jimmy sobbed, pressed against a corner of the hall, his hands to his eyes.

‘All right, Jimmy. Jimmy can help play with the carpet,’ Rhoda answered, as Midmore went forth into the darkness and the roarings all round. He had never seen such an utterly unregulated state of affairs. There was another lantern reflected on the streaming drive.

‘Hi! Rhoda! Did you get my note? I came down to make sure. I thought, afterwards, Jimmy might funk the water!’

‘It’s me–Miss Sperrit,’ Midmore cried. ‘Yes, we got it, thanks.’

‘You’re back, then. Oh, good!… Is it bad down with you?’

‘I’m going to Sidney’s to have a look.’

‘You won’t get him out. ‘Lucky I met Bob Lotten. I told him he hadn’t any business impounding water for his idiotic trout without rebuilding the dam.’

‘How far up is it? I’ve only been there once.’

‘Not more than four miles as the water will come. He says he’s opened all the sluices.’

She had turned and fallen into step beside him, her hooded head bowed against the thinning rain. As usual she was humming to herself.

‘Why on earth did you come out in this weather?’ Midmore asked.

‘It was worse when you were in town. The rain’s taking off now. If it wasn’t for that pond, I wouldn’t worry so much. There’s Sidney’s bell. Come on!’ She broke into a run. A cracked bell was jangling feebly down the valley.

‘Keep on the road!’ Midmore shouted. The ditches were snorting bank-full on either side, and towards the brook-side the fields were afloat and beginning to move in the darkness.

‘Catch me going off it! There’s his light burning all right.’ She halted undistressed at a little rise. ‘But the flood’s in the orchard. Look!’ She swung her lantern to show a front rank of old apple-trees reflected in still, out-lying waters beyond the half-drowned hedge. They could hear above the thud-thud of the gorged floodgates, shrieks in two keys as monotonous as a steam-organ.

‘The high one’s the pig.’ Miss Sperrit laughed.

‘All right! I’ll get her out. You stay where you are, and I’ll see you home afterwards.’

‘But the water’s only just over the road,’ she objected.

‘Never mind. Don’t you move. Promise?’

‘All right. You take my stick, then, and feel for holes in case anything’s washed out anywhere. This is a lark!’

Midmore took it, and stepped into the water that moved sluggishly as yet across the farm road which ran to Sidney’s front door from the raised and metalled public road. It was half way up to his knees when he knocked. As he looked back Miss Sperrit’s lantern seemed to float in mid-ocean.