6 REDPAD THE FOX 
but the brick walls of the drain were still strong 
and water-tight. Paddy Magragh in his cabin also 
heard the storm roaring outside, and remembered 
that he had left the sluice of the reservoir closed ; 
but he dismissed the thought with a characteristic 
' time enough to-morrow.' 
Vix was astir at daybreak the next morning. 
The wind still moaned in fitful gusts and brief rain- 
storms drove across the sky. There was a watery 
gleam in the east which told of the sunrise to be, 
and the fields were flooded. Vix reached the 
reservoir. It was full of turbid water which lipped 
to the very brim, and the clay which dammed up 
the broken wall was sodden and dripping. 
As Vix watched, a strange thing happened. 
A lump crumbled outwards and a ripple of water 
ran down the slope towards the fence. It swelled 
a little as the hole grew larger, until it became quite 
a broad stream. It sang a merry little song to 
itself as it ran so merry that a number of brother 
ripples hastened to join it. They crowded.into the 
hole in such numbers, struggling to pass through, 
that suddenly the whole earthwork tottered and 
crumbled away, and the coffee-coloured flood leaped 
through the gap down the hill in the wake of the 
first ripple. Brawling, tumbling, spreading into 
shallow pools and splashing cascades, it raced down 
