Then came the deluge. Wany, her uncanny weather senses prickling, prophesied it two days in advance. Bohenna was uneasy, but Ortho, pointing to the serene sky, laughed at their fears. The next day the heat became oppressive, and he was not so sure. He woke at ten o’clock that night to a terrific clap of thunder, sat up in bed, and watched the little room flashing from black to white from the winks of lightning, his own shadow leaping gigantic across the illuminated wall; heard the rain come up the valley, roaring through the treetops like surf, break in a cataract over the Owls’ House and sweep on. “This’ll stamp us out . . . beat us flat,” he muttered, and lay wondering what he should do, if there was anything to do, and as he wondered merciful sleep came upon him, weary body dragging the spirit down with it into oblivion. The rain continued with scarcely less violence for a week, held off for two days and came down again. August crept out blear-eyed and draggle-tailed. The Penhales saved a few potatoes and about one-fifth of the cereals—not enough to provide them with daily bread; they would actually have to buy meal in the coming year. Bohenna, old child of the soil, took the calamity with utter calm; he was inured to these bitter caprices of Nature. Ortho shrugged his shoulders and laughed. It was nobody’s fault, he said; they had done all they could; Penaluna had fared no better. The only course was to whistle and go at it again; that sort of thing could hardly happen twice running. He whistled and went at it again, at once, breaking stone out of a field towards Polmenna, but Eli knew that for all his brave talk the heart was out of him. There was a lassitude in his movements; he was merely making a show of courage. Gradually he slowed down. He began to visit the Kiddlywink of a night, and lay abed long after sunrise. At the end of October a fresh bolt fell out of the blue. The Crowan tin works, in which the Penhale money was invested, suddenly closed down. It turned out that they had been running at a loss for the last eight months in the hope of striking a new lode, a debt of three hundred pounds had been incurred, the two other shareholders were without assets, so, under the old Cost Book system current in Cornish mining, Teresa was liable for the whole sum.