So Tom and Jack turned out into the night and set forth up the valley toward Hinchliffe Mill. Their road lay at times by the winding serpentine course of the river, and when the watery moon glanced downwards with bleared eye from among the clouds they could see the swollen waters. They met scarce a soul. It was late and a'ready the lights in the village and on the hillsides were being extinguished in the "house" or chamber. An occasional cur sadly bayed the moon. The swollen waters of the river rolled in their bed with sullen sob. It was a night of dread through which the growing wind wailed amid its tears. The gloom of the hour and scene fell upon the comrades. Scarce a word passed between them, as with bent heads and cloaks close drawn they made their way through the mire of the high-road and the sloughs of known bye-paths little trod. It was hard on ten of the night when the mill was reached. Jack kindled a fire in the office-grate and sat beside it for a time to dry his shoon. He made a brew of strong coffee for his master to cheer him through his task. Then Jack in stocking-feet sought the wool-hole where he had improvised a bed of unscoured pieces, greasy, but snug and warm, and anon his loud breathing might be heard above the beating of the storm without. Up to something near the weird midnight hour Tom bent over his invoices and books, fighting against the waywardness of thoughts that seemed intent on anything but accounts. At length he abandoned his task half done. He felt strangely wake and alert. At all times able to do with little sleep,--that is a feature of your mill-worker--to-night he felt that he should woo slumber in vain. Donning his pilot jacket that had been steaming and drying on a chair-back before the fire, and lighting a lanthorn and taking in his hand his stout gnarled shillelagh, bought from an Irish hay-maker last harvest-time, he set forth alone on his usual round of the mill-yard, leaving the outer door of the mill on the latch. His round finished, led by what impulse, moved by that presentment he did not stay to consider, he left the mill-yard and began to climb the hill towards Bilberry reservoir. He walked sharply, for the night air was biting shrewdly, and Tom was a noted walker. His long strides soon covered the distance that lay between the mill and the reservoir bank. Tom hummed an air to keep him company in that vast solitude. The sky was clearer now than an hour or two before, but the night was still dark enough to make the feeble glimmer of the lanthorn grateful. Tom moderated his pace as he neared the embankment. Was it worth while to climb its steep face or should he turn his steps downhill. He could hear the water above his head lapping against the copings of the bank. Still, as he had come so far he might, he thought, as well walk the round of the embankment. He was on the huge abutment that turned its breast towards the valley the long barricade that cooped