Ransome sighed. "Poor Shifty!" said he; "you'll never play us another trick. What an end for a man of your abilities!"

And now the day began to dawn, and that was fortunate, for otherwise they could hardly have found the house they were going to.

On the way to it they came on two dead bodies, an old man of eighty and a child scarce a week old. One fate had united these extremes of human life, the ripe sheaf and the spring bud. It transpired afterward that they had been drowned in different parishes. Death, that brought these together, disunited hundreds. Poor Dolman's body was found scarce a mile from his house, but his wife's eleven miles on the other side of Hillsborough; and this wide separation of those who died in one place by one death, was constant, and a pitiable feature of the tragedy.

At last they got to the house, and Little shuddered at the sight of it; here not only was the whole front wall taken out, but a part of the back wall; the jagged chimneys of the next house still clung to this miserable shell, whose upper floors were slanting sieves, and on its lower was a deep layer of mud, with the carcass of a huge sow lying on it, washed in there all the way from Hatfield village.

The people had all run away from the house, and no wonder, for it seemed incredible that it could stand a single moment longer; never had ruin come so close to demolition and then stopped.

There was nothing to be done here, and Ransome went back to Hillsborough, keeping this side the water.

Daybreak realized his worst fears: between Poma Bridge and the first suburb of Hillsborough the place was like a battle-field; not that many had been drowned on the spot, but that, drowned all up the valley by the flood at its highest, they had been brought down and deposited in the thick layer of mud left by the abating waters. Some were cruelly gashed and mangled by the hard objects with which they had come in contact. Others wore a peaceful expression and had color in their cheeks. One drew tears from both these valiant men. It was a lovely little girl, with her little hands before her face to keep out the sight of death.

Here and there, a hand or a ghastly face appearing above the mud showed how many must be hidden altogether, and Ransome hurried home to get more assistance to disinter the dead.