'What on earth will happen to the big rose-bed?' was Midmore's first word.
'It generally 'as to be restocked after a flood. Ah!' she raised her lantern. 'There's two garden-seats knockin' against the sun-dial. Now, that won't do the roses any good.'
'This is too absurd. There ought to be some decently thought-out system--for--for dealing with this sort of thing.' He peered into the rushing gloom. There seemed to be no end to the moisture and the racket. In town he had noticed nothing.
'It can't be 'elped,' said Rhoda. 'It's just what it does do once in just so often. We'd better go back.'
All earth under foot was sliding in a thousand liquid noises towards the hoarse brook. Somebody wailed from the house: ''Fraid o' the water! Come 'ere! 'Fraid o' the water!'
'That's Jimmy. Wet always takes 'im that way,' she explained. The idiot charged into them, shaking with terror.
'Brave Jimmy! How brave of Jimmy! Come into the hall. What Jimmy got now?' she crooned. It was a sodden note which ran: 'Dear Rhoda--Mr. Lotten, with whom I rode home this afternoon, told me that if this wet keeps up, he's afraid the fish-pond he built last year, where Coxen's old mill-dam was, will go, as the dam did once before, he says. If it does it's bound to come down the brook. It may be all right, but perhaps you had better look out. C.S.'
'If Coxen's dam goes, that means.... I'll 'ave the drawing-room carpet up at once to be on the safe side. The claw-'ammer is in the libery.'
'Wait a minute. Sidney's gates are out, you said?'
'Both. He'll need it if Coxen's pond goes.... I've seen it once.'