r
next best, 'adn't you? I'm afraid they've shrank. 'Adn't you best
try 'em on?'

'Here?' said Midmore.

''Suit yourself. I bathed you when you wasn't larger than a leg o'
lamb,' said the ex-ladies'-maid.

'Rhoda, one of these days I shall get a valet, and a married butler.'

'There's many a true word spoke in jest. But nobody's huntin'
to-morrow.'

'Why? Have they cancelled the meet?'

'They say it only means slipping and over-reaching in the mud, and they
all 'ad enough of that to-day. Charlie told me so just now.'

'Oh!' It seemed that the word of Mr. Sperrit's confidential clerk had
weight.

'Charlie came down to help Mr. Sidney lift the gates,' Rhoda continued.

'The floodgates? They are perfectly easy to handle now. I've put in a
wheel and a winch.'

'When the brook's really up they must be took clean out on account of
the rubbish blockin' 'em. That's why Charlie came down.'

Midmore grunted impatiently. 'Everybody has talked to me about that
brook ever since I came here. It's never done anything yet.'

'This 'as been a dry summer. If you care to look now, sir, I'll get you
a lantern.'

She paddled out with him into a large wet night. Half-way down the lawn
her light was reflected on shallow brown water, pricked through with
grass blades at the edges. Beyond that light, the brook was strangling
and kicking among hedges and tree-trunks.

'What on earth will happen to the big rose-bed?' was Midmore's first
word.

'It generally 'as to be restocked after a flood. Ah!' she raised her
lantern. 'There's two garden-seats knockin' against the sun-dial. Now,
that won't do the roses any good.'

'This is too absurd. There ought to be some decently thought-out
system--for--for dealing with this sort of thing.' He peered into the
rushing gloom. There seemed to be no end to the moisture and the racket.
In town he had noticed nothing.

'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,