nine
o'clock
A gloomy echoing and gurgling sounded from the dark wheel-chamber where the water was rushing under the wheel and jarring it with its tumult . At eight o'clock the woodshed was flooded and water began to creep under the kitchen door . Dorothy and the boys carried armfuls of wood and stacked them in the passage to the sitting-room , two steps higher up . At nine o'clock the boys were sent protesting to bed , and Dorothy , looking out of their window as she fumbled about in the dark for a pair of Shep 's trousers that needed mending , saw a lantern flickering up the road . It was Evesham on his way to the mill-dams . The light glimmered on his oilskin coat as he climbed the stile behind the well-curb . `` He raised the flood-gates at noon , '' Dorothy said to herself .