From the upper windows of the Mains, looking towards the chief current, they saw a drift of everything belonging to farms and dwelling-houses that would float.

Chairs and tables, chests, carts, saddles, chests of drawers, tubs of linen, beds and blankets, workbenches, harrows, girnels, planes, cheeses, churns, spinning-wheels, cradles, iron pots, wheel-barrows--all these and many other things hurried past as they gazed.

Everybody was looking, and for a time all had been silent.
"Lord save us!" cried Mr.Duff, with a great start, and ran for his telescope.
A four-post bed came rocking down the river, now shooting straight for a short distance, now slowly wheeling, now shivering, struck by some swifter thing, now whirling giddily round in some vortex.

The soaked curtains were flacking and flying in the great wind--and--yes, the telescope revealed it!--there was a figure in it! dead or alive the farmer could not tell, but it lay still!--A cry burst from them all; but on swept the strange boat, bound for the world beyond the flood, and none could stay its course.
The water was now in the stable and cow-houses and barn.

A few minutes more and it would be creeping into the kitchen.