Nothing but the failure of the water could have driven them from Wisteria Grove. Half-a-dozen times every day Gosling would climb up to the top of the house to reassure himself. And at last came the day when a dreadful silence reigned under the slates, when no delicious tinkle of water gave promise of maintained security from water famine. "It'll come on again at night," said Gosling to himself. "We'll 'ave to be careful, that's all." He went downstairs and issued orders that no more water was to be drawn that day. "Well, we must wash up the breakfast things," was his wife's reply. "You mustn't wash up nothing," said Gosling, "not one blessed thing. It's better to go dirty than die o' thirst. Hevery drop o' the water in that cistern must be saved for drinkin'." Mrs Gosling noisily put down the kettle she was holding. "Oh! very well, my lord!" she remarked, sarcastically. She looked at her two daughters with a twist of her mouth. There were only two sides in that house; the women were as yet united against the common foe. When Gosling, fatuously convinced of his authority, had gone, his wife quietly filled the kettle and proceeded with her washing up. "Your father thinks 'e knows everything these days," remarked the mother to her allies. There was much whispering for some time. Gosling spent most of the day in the roof, but not until the afternoon did he realize that the cistern was slowly being emptied. His first thought was that one of the pipes leaked, his second that it was time to make a demonstration of force. He found a walking-stick in the hall.... But even when that precious half-cistern of water was only called upon to supply the needs of thirst, and the Goslings, sinking further into the degradation of savagedom, slunk furtive and filthy about the gloomy house, it became evident that a move must be made sooner or later. Two alternatives were presented: they might go north and east to the Lea, or south to the Thames. Gosling chose the South. He knew Putney; he had been born there. He knew nothing of Clapton and its neighbourhood. So one bright, clear day at the end of May, the Goslings set out on their great trek. The head of the house, driven desperate by fear of thirst, raided his late partner's coal sheds and found one living horse and several dead ones. The living horse was partly revived by water from an adjacent butt, and the next day it was harnessed to a coal cart and commandeered to convey the Goslings' provisions to Putney. It died half-a-mile short of their destination, but they were able, by the exercise of their united strength, to get the cart and its burden down to the river. They found an empty house without difficulty, but they had an unpleasant half-hour in removing what remained of one of the previous occupants. Gosling hoped it was not a case of plague. As the body was that of a woman, and terribly emaciated, there were some grounds for his optimism.