Throughout the meal, which had been a merry one, they had tacitly ignored the rain, although it was still coming down--as they say in the dales--whole watter. Now they were suddenly silent. But on the slates it clattered, on the walls it slashed, on the ground it spluttered, through the air it fell hissing. Over and above it the beck thundered. Mistress Lynn sat upright in her bed, and listened with an expression of awe upon her grim old countenance; Lucy drew nearer to Peter, her eyes wide and panic-stricken; Jan Straw left the ingle. "Hark!" said the old woman. Peter went to the door and looked out. Down the bed of the stream came a foaming, boiling cataract. Seen through the gloom it was suggestive of flying, riderless horses, tossing their manes in the air, and chafing at their bits. "Six white horses and a coach," muttered Jan, stumbling bare-headed into the rain. "Come back," cried Lucy. "Come back," cried Peter. "Jan, Jan, you old fool," said Mistress Lynn, leaning out from her great bed, and peering across the candle-lit room to the darkness framed by the open door. But Jan was gone. The garden wall fell and the water rolled up to the doorstep, where it seemed to pause before slowly withdrawing. It did not go back alone. Lucy, regardless of her own safety, impulsive to recklessness where her affections were concerned, followed it, and thinking that she saw Jan but a few steps ahead, ran forward. The ground gave way under her feet, and the beck had its grip on her in a moment. The incident happened so swiftly that Peter was already struggling with the flood for the possession of the girl before he realised what had taken place. When he tried to recall it afterwards he could remember nothing save that his hand, by its own sense and cunning, had snatched at her frock as she was being swept past him. He dragged her from the water, and carried her into the house, laying her drenched form down before the fire. She was not unconscious, and stumbled to her feet, crying: "Jan, save Jan, Peter!" She would have followed him out again into the slashing rain, but Mistress Lynn called her back peremptorily. The old woman was terribly upset. She had had to lie in the four-poster and know that something dreadful was taking place outside. She had watched Jan rush out, then Lucy, then Peter; but she had heard nothing save the roar of waters, and seen nothing save a faint white gleam as they foamed by. Now she strove for composure, and wiped the tears that had come unbidden upon her cheeks. "Go and fettle thyself," she said to the shivering girl. "Then you'll be fit to look after the old man if he needs looking after any more."