Sir Walter Scott The next day, the rain ceased, although a sullen grey sky still pressed down on the sodden fields about the inn. Maria went for a walk along the road with Miss Spiggs to view the ravages of the storm. They had gone only a little way when Miss Spiggs began to complain that her feet hurt. Maria longed to send her back and walk ahead on her own, but she knew she ought to be chaperoned, and although she still fiercely blamed the Duke of Berham, the thought of her own behaviour made her blush. She should never have gone to see him on her own. When she saw him half-naked, she should have fled. So she ignored Miss Spiggs’s complaints and picked her way along the muddy road, holding up her skirts. They had gone about half a mile when they came to a raging torrent which cut across the road and plunged down a rocky slope into the tangled briers and scrub of an an uncultivated field below. A knot of people were already there, staring at the flood in dismay. One of them, a gentlewoman who was there with her maid, turned round as Maria approached and exclaimed, ‘They say we will be stranded at the inn until this torrent abates.
