Stubbs vowed perpetual silence, and we parted, I to ride home, feeling extremely queer. The lightning still flashed, but at longer intervals, and before I had gone a hundred yards, there came a gust which tossed upward the tree branches and beat down the reeds, and the rain fell in streams. That was no matter to me, for I was as wet as man could be, but Trueboy misliked it, so the rest of our way we flew. CHAPTER VII Luke burst into my room early next morning, to tell me that the waters were out to a height such as no one remembered. The Don, which had been turned by the Dutchmen into a channel connecting it with the Aire, had taken its old course with fury, flooding the western side of Crowle as with a second deluge. I jumped out of bed, almost forgetting the aching and soreness of my head and the stiffness of my limbs, for, if this account were true, the inhabitants of the Crowle vicarage were in jeopardy. Luke assured me that "'twas no manner of use to try to reach Crowle by riding, for t' causey was under water;" so after I had broken fast with a crust and a cup of small ale, I had out my boat, and taking Luke with me, set sail northward. The marsh had become a deep lake, and the low-lying fields in our neighbourhood were flooded, and here and there we came on the carcase of a sheep or a pig; but when we drew near to Crowle there was a sorry sight indeed. The cornfields on the slopes of Totlets had disappeared under muddy water, and several clay-built cottages had crumbled and fallen in. Some of the recent tenants were about in punts, gathering up what they could of their bits of furniture. From them we learned that no life had been lost there. The folk had been aroused by the barking and whining of a dog, and had taken refuge on higher ground, before the old walls fell in. As we came nearer to the town, the water was so cumbered with wreckage, that we let down the sail, and took to the oars, lest we should foul among the bundles of reeds, straw-stooks, empty casks, dead sheep and swine, hay rakes, pails, and other things innumerable, which were strewn on the surface of the water. Some of the more westerly houses were surrounded with water up to the lower windows, and at sight of us, the inhabitants, who were at the upper windows, set up a great cry for help. We shouted that we would come, or send to them, as soon as might be, our first concern being the vicarage. Passing Farmer Dowson's on our right, we saw him and his men, waist-deep in the water, staggering under bags of corn, carrying pigs in their arms, struggling with frightened horses, leading them to the higher ground behind the farmstead. The farmer hailed us, but only to relieve his soul by shouting a malediction on the Dutch. The water became shallower as we neared the church, for (as we discovered later) the first rush of the river had brought down an immense quantity of silt, which had been deposited in a bed sloping from the wall of the churchyard. To our