Looking up the coomb, desolation was writ large and the utmost
margins of the flood clearly recorded on branch and bough, where rubbish
which had floated to the fringe of the flood was caught and hung aloft.
Below, as the waters gained volume and force, Buryas Bridge, an ancient
structure of three arches beneath which the trout-stream peacefully babbled
under ordinary conditions, was swept headlong away and the houses hard by
flooded; while the greatest desolation had fallen on those orchards lying
lowest in the valley. Indeed the nearer the flood approached Newlyn the
more tremendous had been the ravage wrought by it. The orchards of Talcarne
valley were ruined as though artillery had swept them, and of the lesser
crops scarce any at all remained. Then, bursting down Street-an-nowan, as
that lane is called, the waters running high where their courses narrowed,
swamped sundry cottages and leaped like a wolf on the low-lying portion of
Newlyn. Here it burst through the alleys and narrow passages, drowned the
basements of many tenements, isolated cottages, stores and granaries,
threatened nearly a hundred lives startled from sleep by its sudden
assault. Then, under the raging weather and in that babel of angry waters,
brave deeds were done by the fisher folk, who chanced to be ashore. Grave
personal risks were hazarded by many a man in that turbid flood, and not a
few women and children were rescued with utmost danger to their saviors'
lives.
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