This was carried out in sheets of cold rain, which soaked the canvas walls and made it doubly hard to get about the clay tracks that served as streets.

As if this were not enough, the river in front of the house rose--rose, and in two twos was over its banks--and he and Long Jim spent a night in their clothes, helping neighbours less fortunately placed to move their belongings into safety.
The lion's share of this work fell on him.

Long Jim still carried his arm in a sling, and was good for nothing but to guard the store and summon Mahony on the appearance of customers.

Since his accident, too, the fellow had suffered from frequent fits of colic or cramp, and was for ever slipping off to the township to find the spirits in which his employer refused to deal.

For the unloading and warehousing of the goods, it was true, old Ocock had loaned his sons; but the strict watch Mahony felt bound to keep over this pretty pair far outweighed what their help was worth to him.
Now it was Sunday evening, and for the first time for more than a week he could call his soul his own again.