第 38 页

Stand up then, gel, stand up, we're not stoppin' here all night,

even if you thought we was. I'm dashed if the jumping rain

wouldn't make anybody think they was drunk. Hey, Jack--does

rain-water wash the sense in, or does it wash it out?" And he

laughed to himself at the joke.

He was always ashamed when he had to drive after he had been

drinking, always apologetic to the horse. His apologetic frame

made him facetious. He was aware of his inability to walk quite

straight. Nevertheless his will kept stiff and attentive, in all

his fuddleness.

He mounted and bowled off through the gates of the innyard.

The mare went well, he sat fixed, the rain beating on his face.

His heavy body rode motionless in a kind of sleep, one centre of

attention was kept fitfully burning, the rest was dark. He

concentrated his last attention on the fact of driving along the

road he knew so well. He knew it so well, he watched for it

attentively, with an effort of will.

He talked aloud to himself, sententious in his anxiety, as if

he were perfectly sober, whilst the mare bowled along and the

rain beat on him. He watched the rain before the gig-lamps, the

faint gleaming of the shadowy horse's body, the passing of the

dark hedges.

"It's not a fit night to turn a dog out," he said to himself,

aloud. "It's high time as it did a bit of clearing up, I'll be

damned if it isn't. It was a lot of use putting those ten loads

of cinders on th' road. They'll be washed to kingdom-come if it

doesn't alter. Well, it's our Fred's look-out, if they are. He's

top-sawyer as far as those things go. I don't see why I should

concern myself. They can wash to kingdom-come and back again for

what I care. I suppose they would be washed back again some day.

That's how things are. Th' rain tumbles down just to mount up in

clouds again. So they say. There's no more water on the earth

than there was in the year naught. That's the story, my boy, if

you understand it. There's no more to-day than there was a

thousand years ago--nor no less either. You can't wear

water out. No, my boy: it'll give you the go-by. Try to wear it

out, and it takes its hook into vapour, it has its fingers at

its nose to you. It turns into cloud and falleth as rain on the

just and unjust. I wonder if I'm the just or the unjust."

He started awake as the trap lurched deep into a rut. And he

wakened to the point in his journey. He had travelled some

distance since he was last conscious.

But at length he reached the gate, and stumbled heavily down,

reeling, gripping fast to the trap. He descended into several

inches of water.

"Be damned!" he said angrily. "Be damned to the miserable

slop."

And he led the horse washing through the gate. He was quite

drunk now, moving blindly, in habit. Everywhere there was water

underfoot.

The raised causeway of the house and the farm-stead was dry,

however. But there was a curious roar in the night which seemed

to be made in the darkness of his own intoxication. Reeling,

blinded, almost without consciousness he carried his parcels and

the rug and cushions into the house, dropped them, and went out

to put up the horse.

Now he was at home, he was a sleep-walker, waiting only for

the moment of activity to stop. Very deliberately and carefully,

he led the horse down the slope to the cart-shed. She shied and

backed.

"Why, wha's amiss?" he hiccupped, plodding steadily on. And

he was again in a wash of water, the horse splashed up water as

he went. It was thickly dark, save for the gig-lamps, and they

lit on a rippling surface of water.

"Well, that's a knock-out," he said, as he came to the

cart-shed, and was wading in six inches of water. But everything

seemed to him amusing. He laughed to think of six inches of

water being in the cart-shed.

He backed in the mare. She was restive. He laughed at the fun

of untackling the mare with a lot of water washing round his

feet. He laughed because it upset her. "What's amiss, what's

amiss, a drop o' water won't hurt you!" As soon as he had undone

the traces, she walked quickly away.

He hung up the shafts and took the gig-lamp. As he came out

of the familiar jumble of shafts and wheels in the shed, the

water, in little waves, came washing strongly against his legs.

He staggered and almost fell.

"Well, what the deuce!" he said, staring round at the running

water in the black, watery night.

He went to meet the running flood, sinking deeper and deeper.

His soul was full of great astonishment. He had to go and

look where it came from, though the ground was going from under

his feet. He went on, down towards the pond, shakily. He rather

enjoyed it. He was knee-deep, and the water was pulling heavily.

He stumbled, reeled sickeningly.

Fear took hold of him. Gripping tightly to the lamp, he

reeled, and looked round. The water was carrying his feet away,

he was dizzy. He did not know which way to turn. The water was

whirling, whirling, the whole black night was swooping in rings.

He swayed uncertainly at the centre of all the attack, reeling

in dismay. In his soul, he knew he would fall.

As he staggered something in the water struck his legs, and

he fell. Instantly he was in the turmoil of suffocation. He

fought in a black horror of suffocation, fighting, wrestling,

but always borne down, borne inevitably down. Still he wrestled

and fought to get himself free, in the unutterable struggle of

suffocation, but he always fell again deeper. Something struck

his head, a great wonder of anguish went over him, then the

blackness covered him entirely.

In the utter darkness, the unconscious, drowning body was

rolled along, the waters pouring, washing, filling in the place.

The cattle woke up and rose to their feet, the dog began to

yelp. And the unconscious, drowning body was washed along in the

black, swirling darkness, passively.

Mrs. Brangwen woke up and listened. With preternaturally

sharp senses she heard the movement of all the darkness that

swirled outside. For a moment she lay still. Then she went to

the window. She heard the sharp rain, and the deep running of

water. She knew her husband was outside.

"Fred," she called, "Fred!"

Away in the night was a hoarse, brutal roar of a mass of

water rushing downwards.

She went downstairs. She could not understand the multiplied

running of water. Stepping down the step into the kitchen, she

put her foot into water. The kitchen was flooded. Where did it

come from? She could not understand.

Water was running in out of the scullery. She paddled through

barefoot, to see. Water was bubbling fiercely under the outer

door. She was afraid. Then something washed against her,

something twined under her foot. It was the riding whip. On the

table were the rug and the cushion and the parcel from the

gig.

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.

"He's taken the mare out of the trap, so he's all right," he

said, growling, pretending to be normal.

But as he descended to the cart-shed, he sank into a foot of

water. He heard the rushing in the distance, he knew the canal

had broken down. The water was running deeper.

The trap was there all right, but no signs of his father. The

young man waded down to the pond. The water rose above his

knees, it swirled and forced him. He drew back.

"Is he the--e--ere?" came the maddening cry of the

mother.

"No," was the sharp answer.

"To--om--To--o--om!" came the piercing,

free, unearthly call. It seemed high and supernatural, almost

pure. Fred Brangwen hated it. It nearly drove him mad. So

awfully it sang out, almost like a song.

The water was flowing fuller into the house.

"You'd better go up to Beeby's and bring him and Arthur down,

and tell Mrs. Beeby to fetch Wilkinson," said Fred to Tilly. He

forced his mother to go upstairs.

"I know your father is drowned," she said, in a curious

dismay.

The flood rose through the night, till it washed the kettle

off the hob in the kitchen. Mrs. Brangwen sat alone at a window

upstairs. She called no more. The men were busy with the pigs

and the cattle. They were coming with a boat for her.

Towards morning the rain ceased, the stars came out over the

noise and the terrifying clucking and trickling of the water.

Then there was a pallor in the east, the light began to come. In

the ruddy light of the dawn she saw the waters spreading out,

moving sluggishly, the buildings rising out of a waste of water.

Birds began to sing, drowsily, and as if slightly hoarse with

the dawn. It grew brighter. Up the second field was the great,

raw gap in the canal embankment.

Mrs. Brangwen went from window to window, watching the flood.

Somebody had brought a little boat. The light grew stronger, the

red gleam was gone off the flood-waters, day took place. Mrs.

Brangwen went from the front of the house to the back, looking

out, intent and unrelaxing, on the pallid morning of spring.

She saw a glimpse of her husband's buff coat in the floods,

as the water rolled the body against the garden hedge. She

called to the men in the boat. She was glad he was found. They

dragged him out of the hedge. They could not lift him into the

boat. Fred Brangwen jumped into the water, up to his waist, and

half carried the body of his father through the flood to the

road. Hay and twigs and dirt were in the beard and hair. The

youth pushed through the water crying loudly without tears, like

a stricken animal. The mother at the window cried, making no

trouble.

The doctor came. But the body was dead. They carried it up to

Cossethay, to Anna's house.

When Anna Brangwen heard the news, she pressed back her head

and rolled her eyes, as if something were reaching forward to

bite at her throat. She pressed back her head, her mind was

driven back to sleep. Since she had married and become a mother,

the girl she had been was forgotten. Now, the shock threatened

to break in upon her and sweep away all her intervening life,

make her as a girl of eighteen again, loving her father. So she

pressed back, away from the shock, she clung to her present

life.

It was when they brought him to her house dead and in his wet

clothes, his wet, sodden clothes, fully dressed as he came from

market, yet all sodden and inert, that the shock really broke

into her, and she was terrified. A big, soaked, inert heap, he

was, who had been to her the image of power and strong life.

Almost in horror, she began to take the wet things from him,

to pull off him the incongruous market-clothes of a well-to-do