one hundred and fifteen sheep were caught in their pastures, and drowned,
the farmer rescuing only eleven. The cottagers were driven to their
lofts, while the tide snatched away their furniture, doors,
window-frames, and tables, and strewed them along the railway banks.
There was flotsam and jetsam on what was now once more the coast-line at
the village of Taliesin, where in old days the bard's cradle had been
washed ashore; here one poor woman recovered her parlour-table of heavy
oak; her chairs had travelled farther yet to the door of a farmhouse in
the extreme corner of the marsh. These people were greater sufferers
than our villagers, but we could only help them by a subscription to
replace their losses.

For ourselves, we suffered nothing except a temporary scarcity of coals
and oil from the interruption of the railway traffic. It was a fortnight
before the next train ran on the stretch between us and Machynlleth, and
in the meanwhile the gap was bridged by a coach service. From four miles
of embankment the ballast had been sapped away, and the sleepers and
rails collapsing into the void presented a dismal picture of wreck.

Yes, we suffered one other privation. It was long before our football-
field rose again from the deeps, and was dry enough for play. Its
goalposts pricking up mournfully through the floods were a landmark which
the boys recognised with rueful eyes in the midst of the drowned and
deformed landscape.

More substantial measures than the patching up of the barricades in which
we assisted must be taken if Borth is to remain permanently in the roll
of Welsh villages. Our storm-wave was but part of a system of aggression
which the sea is carrying out upon these coasts. Older residents
remember a coach-road under the promontory, where now there is nothing