'Can't you keep out of this fight, John?'
'My own one,' I answered, gazing through the long black lashes, at the depths of radiant love; 'I believe there will be nothing: but what there is I must see out.'
'Shall I tell you what I think, John? It is only a fancy of mine, and perhaps it is not worth telling.'
'Let us have it, dear, by all means. You know so much about their ways.'
'What I believe is this, John. You know how high the rivers are, higher than ever they were before, and twice as high, you have told me. I believe that Glen Doone is flooded, and all the houses under water.'
'You little witch,' I answered; 'what a fool I must be not to think of it! Of course it is: it must be. The torrent from all the Bagworthy forest, and all the valleys above it, and the great drifts in the glen itself, never could have outlet down my famous waterslide. The valley must be under water twenty feet at least. Well, if ever there was a fool, I am he, for not having thought of it.'
'I remember once before,' said Lorna, reckoning on her fingers, 'when there was heavy rain, all through the autumn and winter, five or it may be six years ago, the river came down with such a rush that the water was two feet deep in our rooms, and we all had to camp by the cliff-edge. But you think that the floods are higher now, I believe I heard you say, John.'
'I don't think about it, my treasure,' I answered; 'you may trust me for understanding floods, after our work at Tiverton. And I know that the deluge in all our valleys is such that no living man can remember, neither will ever behold again. Consider three months of snow, snow, snow, and a fortnight of rain on the top of it, and all to be drained in a few days away! And great barricades of ice still in the rivers blocking them up, and ponding them. You may take my word for it, Mistress Lorna, that your pretty bower is six feet deep.'
'Well, my bower has served its time', said Lorna, blushing as she remembered all that had happened there; 'and my bower now is here, John. But I am so sorry to think of all the poor women flooded out of their houses and sheltering in the snowdrifts. However, there is one good of it: they cannot send many men against us, with all this trouble upon them.'
'You are right,' I replied; 'how clever you are! and that is why there were only three to cut off Master Stickles. And now we shall beat them, I make no doubt, even if they come at all. And I defy them to fire the house: the thatch is too wet for burning.'