He had come home. “Tom!” she called, afraid of her own voice. She opened the door. Water ran in with a horrid sound. Everywhere was moving water, a sound of waters. “Tom!” she cried, standing in her nightdress with the candle, calling into the darkness and the flood out of the doorway. “Tom! Tom!” And she listened. Fred appeared behind her, in trousers and shirt. “Where is he?” he asked. He looked at the flood, then at his mother. She seemed small and uncanny, elvish, in her nightdress. “Go upstairs,” he said. “He’ll be in th’ stable.” “To—om! To—om!” cried the elderly woman, with a long, unnatural, penetrating call that chilled her son to the marrow. He quickly pulled on his boots and his coat. “Go upstairs, mother,” he said; “I’ll go an’ see where he is.” “To—om! To—o—om!” rang out the shrill, unearthly cry of the small woman. There was only the noise of water and the mooing of uneasy cattle, and the long yelping of the dog, clamouring in the darkness. Fred Brangwen splashed out into the flood with a lantern. His mother stood on a chair in the doorway, watching him go. It was all water, water, running, flashing under the lantern. “Tom! Tom! To—o—om!” came her long, unnatural cry, ringing over the night. It made her son feel cold in his soul. And the unconscious, drowning body of the father rolled on below the house, driven by the black water towards the high-road. Tilly appeared, a skirt over her nightdress. She saw her mistress clinging on the top of a chair in the open doorway, a candle burning on the table. “God’s sake!” cried the old serving-woman. “The cut’s burst. That embankment’s broke down. Whativer are we goin’ to do!” Mrs. Brangwen watched her son, and the lantern, go along the upper causeway to the stable. Then she saw the dark figure of a horse: then her son hung the lamp in the stable, and the light shone out faintly on him as he untackled the mare. The mother saw the soft blazed face of the horse thrust forward into the stable-door. The stables were still above the flood. But the water flowed strongly into the house. “It’s getting higher,” said Tilly. “Hasn’t master come in?” Mrs. Brangwen did not hear. “Isn’t he the—ere?” she called, in her far-reaching, terrifying voice. “No,” came the short answer out of the night. “Go and loo—ok for him.” His mother’s voice nearly drove the youth mad. He put the halter on the horse and shut the stable door. He came splashing back through the water, the lantern swinging. The unconscious, drowning body was pushed past the house in the deepest current. Fred Brangwen came to his mother. “I’ll go to th’ cart-shed,” he said. “To—om, To—o—om!” rang out the strong, inhuman cry. Fred Brangwen’s blood froze, his heart was very angry. He gripped his veins in a frenzy. Why was she yelling like this? He could not bear the sight of her, perched on a chair in her white nightdress in the doorway, elvish and horrible.