the house in
the deepest current. Fred Brangwen came to his mother.

"I'll go to th' cart-shed," he said.

"To--om, To--o--om!" rang out the strong,
inhuman cry. Fred Brangwen's blood froze, his heart was very
angry. He gripped his veins in a frenzy. Why was she yelling
like this? He could not bear the sight of her, perched on a
chair in her white nightdress in the doorway, elvish and
horrible.

"He's taken the mare out of the trap, so he's all right," he
said, growling, pretending to be normal.

But as he descended to the cart-shed, he sank into a foot of
water. He heard the rushing in the distance, he knew the canal
had broken down. The water was running deeper.

The trap was there all right, but no signs of his father. The
young man waded down to the pond. The water rose above his
knees, it swirled and forced him. He drew back.

"Is he the--e--ere?" came the maddening cry of the
mother.

"No," was the sharp answer.

"To--om--To--o--om!" came the piercing,
free, unearthly call. It seemed high and supernatural, almost
pure. Fred Brangwen hated it. It nearly drove him mad. So
awfully it sang out, almost like a song.

The water was flowing fuller into the house.

"You'd better go up to Beeby's and bring him and Arthur down,
and tell Mrs. Beeby to fetch Wilkinson," said Fred to Tilly. He
forced his mother to go upstairs.

"I know your father is drowned," she said, in a curious
dismay.

The flood rose through the night, till it washed the kettle
off the hob in the kitchen. Mrs. Brangwen sat alone at a window
upstairs. She called no more. The men were busy with the pigs
and the cattle. They were coming with a boat for her.

Towards morning the rain ceased, the stars came out over the
noise and the terrifying clucking and trickling of the water.
Then there was a pallor in the east, the light began to come. In
the ruddy light of the dawn she saw the waters spreading out,
moving sluggishly, the buildings rising out of a waste of water.
Birds began to sing, drowsily, and as if slightly hoarse with
the dawn. It grew brighter. Up the second field was the great,
raw gap in the canal embankment.

Mrs. Brangwen went from window to window, watching the flood.
Somebody had brought a little boat. The light grew stronger, the
red gleam was gone off the flood-waters, day took place. Mrs.
Brangwen went from the front of the house to the back, looking
out, intent and unrelaxing, on the pallid morning of spring.

S