He started awake as the trap lurched deep into a rut. And he
wakened to the point in his journey. He had travelled some
distance since he was last conscious.
But at length he reached the gate, and stumbled heavily down,
reeling, gripping fast to the trap. He descended into several
inches of water.
"Be damned!" he said angrily. "Be damned to the miserable
slop."
And he led the horse washing through the gate. He was quite
drunk now, moving blindly, in habit. Everywhere there was water
underfoot.
The raised causeway of the house and the farm-stead was dry,
however. But there was a curious roar in the night which seemed
to be made in the darkness of his own intoxication. Reeling,
blinded, almost without consciousness he carried his parcels and
the rug and cushions into the house, dropped them, and went out
to put up the horse.
Now he was at home, he was a sleep-walker, waiting only for
the moment of activity to stop. Very deliberately and carefully,
he led the horse down the slope to the cart-shed. She shied and
backed.
"Why, wha's amiss?" he hiccupped, plodding steadily on. And
he was again in a wash of water, the horse splashed up water as
he went. It was thickly dark, save for the gig-lamps, and they
lit on a rippling surface of water.
"Well, that's a knock-out," he said, as he came to the
cart-shed, and was wading in six inches of water. But everything
seemed to him amusing. He laughed to think of six inches of
water being in the cart-shed.
He backed in the mare. She was restive. He laughed at the fun
of untackling the mare with a lot of water washing round his
feet. He laughed because it upset her. "What's amiss, what's
amiss, a drop o' water won't hurt you!" As soon as he had undone
the traces, she walked quickly away.
He hung up the shafts and took the gig-lamp. As he came out
of the familiar jumble of shafts and wheels in the shed, the
water, in little waves, came washing strongly against his legs.
He staggered and almost fell.
"Well, what the deuce!" he said, staring round at the running
water in the black, watery night.
He went to meet the running flood, sinking deeper and deeper.
His soul was full of great astonishment. He had to go and
look where it came from, though the ground was going from under
his feet. He went on, down towards the pond, shakily. He rather
enjoyed it. He was knee-deep, and the water was pulling heavily.
He stumbled, reeled sickeningly.
Fear took hold of him. Gripping tightly to the lamp, he
reeled, and looked round. The water was carrying his feet away,
he was dizzy. He did not know which way to turn. The water was
whirling, whirling, the whole black night was swooping in rings.
He swayed uncertainly at the centre of all the attack, reeling
in dismay. In his soul, he knew he would fall.