water, which was not that of
the rain. He thought it must be the sound of a canoe-paddle. Could
anybody row against such a torrent? But he distinctly heard the
plashing, and it was below him. Even Katy roused herself to listen, and
strained her eyes against the blackness of the night to discover what it
might be. It did not grow any nearer. It did not retreat. At the end of
ten minutes this irregular but distinct dipping sound, which seemed to
be in some way due to human agency, was neither farther nor nearer,
neither slower nor more rapid than at first. Albert hallooed again and
again at it, but the mysterious cause of this dipping and dashing was
deaf to all cries for help. Or if not deaf, this oarsman seemed as
incapable of giving reply as the "dumb old man" that rowed the "lily
maid of Astolat" to the palace of Arthur.

But it was no oarsman, not even a dumb one. The lightning for which
Albert prayed came at last, and illumined the water and the shores,
dispelling all dreams of canoe or oarsman. Charlton saw in an instant
that there was a fence a few rods away, and that where the fence crossed
the stream, or crossed from bank to bank of what was the stream at its
average stage, long poles had been used, and one of these long and supple
poles was now partly submerged. The swift current bent it in the middle
until it would spring out of the water and drop back higher up. It was
thus kept in a rotary motion, making the sound which he had mistaken for
the paddling of a canoeman. With this discovery departed all thought of
human help from that quarter.

But with the dissipating of the illusion came a new hope. Charlton
turned the head of the horse back and drove him out of the water, or at
least to a part of the meadow where the overflowed water did not reach to
his knees. Here he tied him to a tree, and told Katy she must stay alone
until he should cross the stream and find help, if help there should be,
and return. It might take him half an hour. But poor Katy said that she
could not live half an hour longer in this rain. And, besides, she knew
that Albert would be drowned in crossing. So that it was with much ado
that he managed to get away from her, and, indeed, I think she cried
after he had gone. He called back to her when he got to the brook's bank,
"All right, Katy!" but Katy heard him through the roar of the rain, and
it seemed to her that he was being swallowed up in a Noachian deluge.

Charlton climbed along