And Reygoch, lying on his chest in the water, was all the time steadily fighting the flood. Right and left of Reygoch rose the ruins of the dyke like two great horns. Reygoch’s beard was touzled, his shoulders were bleeding. Yet he could not stop the Banewater, and the flood round the hillock was rising and rising to drown the poor remnant there. And now it was night—yea, midnight.
All of a sudden a thought flashed through Curlylocks, and through all the sobbing and crying she laughed aloud as she called to Reygoch:
“Reygoch, you old simpleton! why don’t you sit between these two horns of the dyke? Why don’t you dam the flood with your shoulders?”
The herd boys and girls stopped wailing at once. So dumbfounded were they at the idea that not one of them had thought of that before!
“Uhuhu!” was all you could hear, and that was Reygoch laughing. And when Reygoch laughs, mind you, it’s no joke! All the water round him boiled and bubbled as he shook with laughter over his own stupidity!
Then Reygoch stood up, faced about, and—in a twinkling—he sat down between those two horns!
And then happened the most wonderful thing of all! For the Black Banewater stood as though you had rolled a wall into the breach! It stood, and could not rise above Reygoch’s shoulders, but followed its usual course, as before, the whole current behind Reygoch’s back. And surely that was a most marvellous rescue!
The boys and girls were saved from the worst of the danger; and Reygoch, sitting comfortably, took up earth in handfuls and all slow-and-surely rebuilt the dyke under himself and on either hand. He began in the middle of the night, and when the dawn broke, the job was finished. And just as the sun rose, Reygoch got up from the dyke with his work done, and started combing his beard, which was all caked with mud, twigs, and little fishes.
But the poor boys and girls were not yet done with their troubles; for where were they to go, and how were they to get there? There they stood on the top of the hillock. All around them was a waste of water. Nothing was to be seen of the two villages but just a few roofs—and not a soul alive in either. To be sure, the villagers might have saved themselves if they had taken refuge in their attics. But in both villages everybody had gone to the threshing-floor with cymbals and fifes to make merry, so that each could watch the destruction of the other. And when the water was up to their waists, they were still clanging their cymbals; and when it was up to their necks, they still blew their fifes for gratified spite. And so they were drowned, one and all, with their fifes and cymbals—and serve them right for their malice and uncharitableness!
So the poor children were left without a soul to cherish or protect them, all houseless and homeless.