Chapter 34

THE GREAT RAIN.

Gavin passed on through Windyghoul, thinking in his frenzy that he
still heard the trap. In a rain that came down like iron rods
every other sound was beaten dead. He slipped, and before he could
regain his feet the dog bit him. To protect himself from dikes and
trees and other horrors of the darkness he held his arm before
him, but soon it was driven to his side. Wet whips cut his brow so
that he had to protect it with his hands, until it had to bear the
lash again, for they would not. Now he had forced up his knees,
and would have succumbed but for a dread of being pinned to the
earth. This fight between the man and the rain went on all night,
and long before it ended the man was past the power of thinking.

In the ringing of the ten o'clock bell Gavin had lived the seventh
part of a man's natural life. Only action was required of him.
That accomplished, his mind had begun to work again, when suddenly
the loss of Babbie stopped it, as we may put out a fire with a
great coal. The last thing he had reflected about was a dogcart in
motion, and, consequently, this idea clung to him. His church, his
mother, were lost knowledge of, but still he seemed to hear the
trap in front.

The rain increased in violence, appalling even those who heard it
from under cover. However rain may storm, though it be an army of
archers battering roofs and windows, it is only terrifying when
the noise swells every instant. In those hours of darkness it
again and again grew in force and doubled its fury, and was
louder, louder, and louder, until its next attack was to be more
than men and women could listen to. They held each other's hands
and stood waiting. Then abruptly it abated, and people could
speak. I believe a rain that became heavier every second for ten
minutes would drive many listeners mad. Gavin was in it on a night
that tried us repeatedly for quite half that time.

By and by even the vision of Babbie in the dogcart was blotted
out. If nothing had taken its place, he would not have gone on
probably; and had he turned back objectless, his strength would
have succumbed to the rain. Now he saw Babbie and Rintoul being
married by a minister who was himself, and there was a fair
company looking on, and always when he was on the point of
shouting to himself, whom he could see clearly, that this woman
was already married, the rain obscured his words and the light
went out. Presently the ceremony began again, always to stop at
the same point. He saw it in the lightning-flash that had startled
the hill. It gave him courage to fight his way onward, because he
thought he must be heard if he could draw nearer to the company.

A regiment of cavalry began to trouble him. He heard