he was suddenly
brought up on the banks of the run. Here he stood aghast. The pretty
rustic bridge that had spanned the run, and led to his own terraced
grounds, was swept away; and the run, now swollen to the size of a
raging river, roared between himself and his home.

His home!--where was it?

He strained his aching eyes through the murky gloom to look for it, and
oh! horror of horrors! his terraced garden and his low-roofed villa had
disappeared, and in their place what seemed a raft, with human beings
on, floated about at the mercy of the flood.

With a pang of despair, he recognized it as his own house-top, with
probably his wife and children clinging to it; and at the same instant
the raft, or roof, was violently whirled around, and swept under by the
force of the current.

With a cry of desperation, the wretched husband and father flung up his
arms to leap into the boiling flood, when he was caught from behind and
held fast.

"What would you do? Rush to certain destruction?" said the voice of Lyon
Berners, who had just reached the spot.

"My wife! my children!" shrieked the man, dashing his hands to his head.

"Come back, or you will be swept away," said Mr. Berners, forcibly
drawing him from the spot just an instant before the water rolled over
it.

And still the rain poured down like another deluge, and still the waters
roared and the waters rose, and dark night hung over the dawn.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE GREAT VALLEY FLOOD.

The rearing river, backward pressed,
Shook all her trembling banks amain,
Then madly at the eygre's breast
Flung up her weltering walls again.
Then banks came down with ruin and rout,
Then beaten foam flew round about,
Then all the mighty floods were out.--JEAN INGELOW.

Meanwhile the worried and angry prison guard had barred up the doors for
the last time that night, to remain barred, as they said, against all
comers until the usual hour of opening next day; and then they went to
bed, and to sleep, little dreaming of the mighty power that would force
an entrance before the light.

Left alone in the prison cell to watch her sleeping patient, Miss Tabby
sat and whimpered over the baby, which she still held in her lap.

Sometimes she listened to the roaring of the river outside, and
sometimes she muttered to herself after the manner of lonely old ladies.

"Oh, indeed I do wish they would come. One on 'em, at any rate! Oh, it's
horrid