A BREACH IN THE BANK 115 



the boy did not hear. The rain on his coat, the 

 wind and the river in his ears drowned every other 

 sound. 



The dusk was falling, and as the doctor looked 

 out over the wild scene, he put his hands to his 

 mouth arid called again. The yellow figure had been 

 blotted out by the rain. There was no response, and 

 the doctor drove on. 



Meanwhile the boy in the yellow oil-skins was 

 splashing slowly back along the narrow, slippery clay 

 bank. He was wet, but he was warm, and he loved 

 the roar of the wind and the beat of the driving 

 rain. 



As the mist and rain were fast mixing with 

 the dusk of the twilight, he quickened his steps. 

 His path in places was hardly a foot wide, covered 

 with rose and elder bushes mostly, but bare in spots 

 where holes and low worn stretches had been re- 

 cently built up with cubes of the tough blue mud 

 of the flats. 



The tide was already even with the top of the 

 bank and was still rising. It leaped and hit at his 

 feet as he picked his way along. The cakes of white 

 ice crunched and heeled up against the bank with 

 here and there one flung fairly across his path. The 

 tossing water frequently splashed across. Twice he 

 jumped places where the tide was running over down 

 into the meadows below. 



How quickly the night had come ! It was dark 



