'Not more than four miles as the water will come. He says he's opened all the sluices.'
She had turned and fallen into step beside him, her hooded head bowed against the thinning rain. As usual she was humming to herself.
'Why on earth did you come out in this weather?' Midmore asked.
'It was worse when you were in town. The rain's taking off now. If it wasn't for that pond, I wouldn't worry so much. There's Sidney's bell. Come on!' She broke into a run. A cracked bell was jangling feebly down the valley.
'Keep on the road!' Midmore shouted. The ditches were snorting bank-full on either side, and towards the brook-side the fields were afloat and beginning to move in the darkness.
'Catch me going off it! There's his light burning all right.' She halted undistressed at a little rise. 'But the flood's in the orchard. Look!' She swung her lantern to show a front rank of old apple-trees reflected in still, out-lying waters beyond the half-drowned hedge. They could hear above the thud-thud of the gorged floodgates, shrieks in two keys as monotonous as a steam-organ.
'The high one's the pig.' Miss Sperrit laughed.
'All right! I'll get her out. You stay where you are, and I'll see you home afterwards.'
'But the water's only just over the road,' she objected.
'Never mind. Don't you move. Promise?'