“Quick, quick, where’s Lucy? Wakken her! Don yo’, Hannah. Ben, Ben, haste thee, man. Oh, here’s Jack; that’s reight lad, aw feart tha’d be longer.”
Lucy, pale, trembling, but calm, had come down, part dressed.
“Ar’t sure, Tom?” asked Ben.
“It’s giving bi inches, it cannot howd. What shall we do? Oh! What shall we do?”
“Mak’ for th’ hills, for sure,” gasped Jack, as he drew deep draughts of breath.
Then Tom felt a quiet hand upon his own, and Lucy by his side drew him part aloof.
“There’s Dorothy lower down,” she whispered, “and if flood come, oh! Woe is me for all at Wilberlee. Hark! the alarm is spread. Race to Wilberlee; and Tom! kiss me, it may be good-bye.”
Tom kissed the tremulous lips raised to his. “God keep you, Lucy, God keep us all. I cannot leave you.”
But Hannah, too, had thought of Wilberlee. “There’s Dorothy. Yo’ mun give th’ alarm at Wilberlee.”
“And you?” asked Tom: but even as he asked he had turned to the door where the horse, all untethered, stood.