Some byplay went on, a half romp, in the rear, between a young woolcomber and a girl reeler.
'Na then,' shouted the night-watch, 'we're none come aht for laikes' (games), 'and if you're gan'ing to remain you must be quiet.'
The incongruity of their behaviour with the gravity of the occasion struck the young people, and they desisted.
What had become of the refuge hut?
Curiously enough, till this moment no one had noticed its disappearance, perhaps because of the completeness with which it had been effaced. No sooner had the stream penetrated to its interior than it had collapsed, and every brick and slate and rafter had been swept away from the platform it had occupied.
The policeman had joined the party, carrying a bull's-eye lantern.
One of the men had provided grappling-irons, always kept near the bridge, because accidents were not uncommon in the canal and the river; drunken men fell in, children in play got pushed over, girls in paroxysms of despair threw themselves in.
The loaf with the light had now got above the spot where the bank had fallen in, and the ripple aided the wind in carrying it within the locks.
'Sho's got an idee!'
'Wheer? I't crust or i't crumb?'