Chapter Three.

Chapter Three.One Way of making War.Mrs Linacre went to the spring as usual, the next morning. If the weather had been doubtful—if there had been any pretence for supposing that the day might not be fine, she would have remained at home. But she looked in vain all round the sky for a cloud: and the wide expanse of fields and meadows in the Levels, with their waving corn and fresh green grass, seemed to bask in the sunshine, as if they felt its luxury. It was a glowing August day;—just such a day as would bring out the invalids from Gainsborough to drink the waters;—just such a day as would tempt the traveller to stop under the shady shed, where he could see waters bubbling up, and taste of the famous medicinal spring, which would cure the present evil of heat, whatever effect it might have on any more lasting ailment. It was just the day when Mrs Linacre must not be missed from her post, and when it would be wrong to give up the earnings which she might expect before sun-down. So she desired her children not to leave the premises,—not even to go out of their father’s sight and hearing; and left them, secure, at least, that they would obey her wishes.They were quite willing to do so. Mildred looked behind her, every few minutes, while she worked in the garden, to see whether Roger was not there, and at every rustle that the birds made among the trees on the Red-hill,—the eminence behind the house,—she fancied that some one was hidden there. Oliver let his tools and his alabaster lie hidden, much as he longed to be at work with them. Mildred had lost her greatest treasure,—the white hen. He must take care of his greatest treasure. Twice, in the course of the morning, he went in, having thought of a safer place; and twice more he put them back among the straw, as safest there after all. He let them alone at last, on Mildred saying that she was afraid Roger might somehow discover why he went in and out so often.They ran to the mill three or four times to tell their father that the brown tent was still under the bank in the carr, and that they could see nobody; though the wild-ducks and geese made such a fluttering and noise, now and then, that it seemed as if some one was lurking about the ponds. Often in the course of the morning, too, did Mr Linacre look out of the mill-window, or nod to them from the top of the steps, that they might see that he did not forget them. Meantime, the white smoke curled up from the kitchen chimney, as Ailwin cooked the dinner; and little George’s voice and hers were often heard from within, as if they were having some fun together.The children were very hot, and began to say that they were hungry, and thought dinner-time was near, when they suddenly felt a strong rush of wind from the west. Oliver lost his cap, and was running after it, when both heard a loud shout from their father, and looked up. They had never heard him shout so loud as he now did, bidding them run up the Red-hill that moment. He waved his arm and his cap in that direction, as if he was mad. Mildred scampered up the hill. She did not know why, nor what was the meaning of the rolling, roaring thunder which seemed to convulse the air: but her head was full of Roger; and she thought it was some mischief of his. One part of the Red-hill was very steep, and the ground soft. Her feet slipped on the moss first, and when she had got above the moss, the red earth crumbled; and she went back at every step, till she caught hold of some brambles, and then of the trunk of a tree; so that, trembling and panting, she reached at last the top of the eminence.When she looked round, she saw a rushing, roaring river where the garden had been, just before. Rough waters were dashing up against the hill on which she stood,—against the house,—and against the mill. She saw the flood spreading, as rapidly as the light at sunrise, over the whole expanse of the Levels. She saw another flood bursting in from the Humber, on the north-east, and meeting that which had just swept by;—she saw the two floods swallowing up field after field, meadow after meadow, splashing up against every house, and surrounding all, so that the roofs, and the stacks beside them, looked like so many little islands. She saw these things in a moment, but did not heed them till afterwards,—for, where was Oliver?Oliver was safe, though it was rather a wonder that he was so, considering his care for his cap. Oliver was an orderly boy, accustomed to take great care of his things; and it did not occur to him to let his cap go, when he had to run for his life. He had to part with it, however. He was flying after it, when another shout from his father made him look round; and then he saw the wall of water, as he called it, rolling on directly upon the house. He gave a prodigious spring across the garden ditch, and up the hill-side, and but just escaped; for the wind which immediately preceded the flood blew him down; and it was clinging to the trunk of a tree that saved him, as his sister had been saved just before. As it was, his feet were wet. Oliver panted and trembled like his sister, but he was safe.Every one was safe. Ailwin appeared at an upper window, exhibiting little George. Mr Linacre stood, with folded arms, in the doorway of his mill; and his wife was (he was thankful to remember) on the side of a high hill, far away. The children and their father knew, while the flood was roaring between them, what all were thinking of; and at the same moment, the miller and his boy waved, the one his hat, and the other a green bough, high and joyously over their heads. Little George saw this from the window, and clapped his hands, and jumped, as Ailwin held him on the window-sill.“Look at Geordie!” cried Mildred. “Do look at him! Don’t you think you hear him now?”This happy mood could not last very long, however, as the waters, instead of going down, were evidently rising every moment. From the first, the flood had been too deep and rapid to allow of the miller crossing from his mill to his house. He was a poor swimmer; and no swimmer, he thought, could have avoided being carried away into the wide marsh, where there was no help. Then, instead of the stream slackening, it rushed more furiously as it rose,—rose first over the wall of the yard, and up to the fourth—fifth—sixth step of the mill-ladder, and then almost into the branches of the apple-trees in the garden.“I hope you will not mind being hungry, Mildred,” said her brother, after a time of silence. “We are not likely to have any dinner to-day, I think.”“I don’t mind that, very much,” said Mildred, “but how do you think we are to get away, with this great river between us and home?”“We shall see what father does,” said Oliver. “He is further off still, on the other side.”“But what is all this water? When will it go away?”“I am afraid the embankments have burst. And yet the weather has been fine enough lately. Perhaps the sluices are broken up.”Seeing that Mildred did not understand the more for what he said, he explained—“You know, all these Levels were watery grounds once; more wet than the carr yonder. Well,—great clay banks were made to keep out the Humber waters, over there, to the north-east, and on the west and north-west yonder, to keep two or three rivers there from overflowing the land. Then several canals and ditches were cut, to drain the land; and there are great gates put up, here and there, to let the waters in and out, as they are wanted. I am afraid those gates are gone, or the clay banks broken down, so that the sea and the rivers are pouring in all the water they have.”“But when will it be over? Will it ever run off again? Shall we ever get home again?”“I do not know anything about it. We must wait, and watch what father will do. See! What is this coming?”“A dead horse!” exclaimed Mildred. “Drowned, I suppose. Don’t you think so, Oliver?”“Drowned, of course.—Do you know, Mildred,” he continued, after a silence, during which he was looking towards the sheds in the yard, while his sister’s eyes were following the body of the horse as it was swept along, now whirled round in an eddy, and now going clear over the hedge into the carr,—“do you know, Mildred,” said Oliver, “I think father will be completely ruined by this flood.”“Do you?” said Mildred, who did not quite know what it was to be ruined. “How? Why?”“Why, it was bad enough that so much gypsum was spoiled yesterday. I am afraid now the whole quarry will be spoiled. And then I doubt whether the harvest will not be ruined all through the Levels: and I am pretty sure nothing will be growing in the garden when the waters are gone. That was not our horse that went by; but our horse may be drowned, and the cow, and the sow, and everything.”“Not the fowls,” said Mildred. “Look at them, all in a row on the top of the cow-shed. They will not be drowned, at any rate.”“But then they may be starved. O dear!” he continued, with a start of recollection, “I wonder whether Ailwin has thought of moving the meal and the grain up-stairs. It will be all rotted and spoiled if the water runs through it.”He shouted, and made signs to Ailwin, with all his might; but in vain. She could not hear a word he said, or make anything of his signs. He was vexed, and said Ailwin was always stupid.“So she is,” replied Mildred; “but it does not signify now. Look how the water is pouring out of the parlour-window. The meal and grain must have been wet through long ago. Is not that a pretty waterfall? A waterfall from our parlour-window, down upon the tulip-bed! How very odd!”“If one could think how to feed these poor animals,” said Oliver,—“and the fowls! If there was anything here that one could get for them! One might cut a little grass for the cow;—but there is nothing else.”“Only the leaves of the trees, and a few blackberries, when they are ripe,” said Mildred, looking round her, “and flowers,—wild-flowers, and a few that mother planted.”“The bees!” cried Oliver. “Let us save them. They can feed themselves. We will save the bees.”“Why, you don’t think they are drowned?” said Mildred.The bees were not drowned; but they were in more danger of it than Mildred supposed. Their little shed was placed on the side of the Red-hill, so as to overlook the flowery garden. The waters stood among the posts of this shed; and the hives themselves shook with every wave that rolled along.“You cannot do it, Oliver,” cried Mildred, as her brother crept down the slope to the back of the shed. “You can never get round, Oliver. You will slip in, Oliver!”Oliver looked round and nodded, as there was no use in speaking in such a noise. He presently showed that he did not mean to go round to the front of the shed. That would never have done; for the flood had washed away the soil there, and left nothing to stand upon. He broke away the boards at the back of the bee-shed, which were old and loosely fastened. He was glad he had come; for the bees were bustling about in great confusion and distress, evidently aware that something great was the matter. Oliver seized one of the hives, with the board it stood on, and carried it, as steadily as he could, to a sunny part of the hill, where he put it down on the grass. He then went for another, asking Mildred to come part of the way down to receive the second hive, and put it by the first, as he saw there was not a moment to lose. She did so; but she trembled so much, that it was probable she would have let the hive fall, if it had ever been in her hands. It never was, however. The soil was now melting away in the water, where Oliver had stood firmly but a few minutes before. He had to take great care, and to change his footing every instant; and it was not without slipping and sliding, and wet feet, that he brought away the second hive. Mildred saw how hot he was, as he sat resting, with the hive, before climbing the bank, and begged that he would not try any more.“These poor bees!” exclaimed Oliver, beginning to move again, on the thought of the bees being drowned. But he had done all he could. The water boiled up between the shed and the bank, lifted the whole structure, and swept it away. Oliver hastened to put down the second hive beside the first; and when he returned, saw that the posts had sunk, the boards were floating away, and the remaining hive itself sailing down the stream.“How it rocks!” cried Mildred. “I wish it would turn quite over, so that the poor things might get out, and fly away.”“They never will,” said Oliver. “I wish I had thought of the bees a little sooner. It is very odd that you did not, Mildred.”“I don’t know how to think of anything,” said Mildred, dolefully; “it is all so odd and so frightful!”“Well, don’t cry, if you can help it, dear,” said her brother. “We shall see what father will do. He won’t cry;—I am sure of that.”Mildred laughed: for she never had seen her father cry.“He was not far off crying yesterday, though,” said Oliver, “when he saw your poor hen lying dead. He looked—but, O Mildred! What can have become of the Redfurns? We have, been thinking all this while about the bees; and we never once remembered the Redfurns. Why, their tent was scarcely bigger than our hives; and I am sure it could not stand a minute against the flood.”While he spoke, Oliver was running to the part of the hill which commanded the widest view of the carr, and Mildred was following at his heels,—a good deal startled by the hares which leaped across her path. There seemed to be more hares now on the hill than she had seen in all her life before. She could not ask about the hares, however, when she saw the brown tent, or a piece of it, flapping about in the water, a great way off, and sweeping along with the current.“Hark! What was that? Did you hear?” said Oliver, turning very pale.“I thought I heard a child crying a great way off,” said Mildred, trembling.“It was not a child, dear. It was a shriek,—a woman’s shriek, I am afraid. I am afraid it is Nan Redfurn, somewhere in the carr. O dear, if they should all be drowned, and nobody there to help them!”“No, no,—I don’t believe it,” said Mildred. “They have got up somewhere,—climbed up something,—that bank or something.”They heard nothing more, amidst the dash of the flood, and they fancied they could see some figures moving on the ridge of the bank, far out over the carr. When they were tired of straining their eyes, they looked about them, and saw, in a smoother piece of water near their hill, a dog swimming, and seeming to labour very much.“It has got something fastened to it,” cried Mildred;—“something tied round its neck.”“It is somebody swimming,” replied Oliver. “They will get safe here now. Cannot we help them? I wish I had a rope! A long switch may do. I will get a long switch.”“Yes, cut a long switch,” cried Mildred: and she pulled and tugged at a long tough thorny bramble, not minding its pricking her fingers and tearing her frock. She could not help starting at the immense number of large birds that flew out, and rabbits that ran away between her feet, while she was about it; but she never left hold, and dragged the long bramble down to the part of the hill that the dog seemed to be trying to reach. Oliver was already there, holding a slip of ash, such as he had sometimes cut for a fishing-rod.“It is Roger, I do believe; but I see nothing of the others,” said he. “Look at his head, as it bobs up and down. Is it not Roger?”“O dear! I hope not!” cried Mildred, in a tone of despair. “What shall we do if he comes?”“We must see that afterwards: we must save him first. Now for it!”As Oliver spoke, the dog ducked, and came up again without Roger, swimming lightly to the bank, and leaping ashore with a bark. Roger was there, however,—very near, but they supposed, exhausted, for he seemed to fall back, and sink, on catching hold of Oliver’s switch, and by the jerk twitched it out of the boy’s hand.“Try again!” shouted Oliver, as he laid Mildred’s bramble along the water. “Don’t let go, Mildred.”Mildred let the thorns run deep into her fingers without leaving her hold. Roger grasped the other end: and they pulled, without jerking, and with all their strength, till he reached the bank, and they could help him out with their hands.“Oh, I am so glad you are safe, Roger!” said Oliver.“You might have found something better than that thorny switch to throw me,” said Roger. “My hands are all blood with the spikes.”“Look at hers!” cried Oliver, intending to show the state that his sister’s hands were in, for Roger’s sake; but Mildred pulled away her hands, and hid them behind her as she retreated, saying,—“No, no. Never mind that now.”Oliver saw how drenched the poor boy looked, and forgave whatever he might say. He asked Mildred to go back to the place where they had been standing, opposite the house; and he would come to her there presently. He then begged Roger to slip off his coat and trousers, that they might wring the wet out of them. He thought they would soon dry in the sun. But Roger pushed him away with his shoulder, and said he knew what he wanted;—he wanted to see what he had got about him. He would knock anybody down who touched his pockets. It was plain that Roger did not choose to be helped in any way; so Oliver soon ran off, and joined Mildred, as he had promised.“I do not like to leave him, all wet, and so tired that I could knock him over with my little finger,” exclaimed Oliver. “But he won’t trust me about any thing.”“There is father again! Tell him,” cried Mildred.Both children shouted that Roger was here, and pointed behind them; but it was plain that their father could not make out a word they said, though they had never called out so loud in their lives. Roger heard them, however, as they judged by seeing him skulking among the trees behind, watching what use they were making of his name.The children thought their father was growing very anxious. He still waved his hat to them, now and then, when he looked their way; but they saw him gazing abroad, as if surprised that the rush of waters did not abate. They observed him glance often round the sky, as if for signs of wind; and they longed to know whether he thought a wind would do good or harm. They saw him bring out, for the third time, a rope which he had seemed to think too short to be of any use; and this appeared to be the case, now as at first. Then he stooped down, as if to make a mark on the side of the white door-post (for the water had by this time quite hidden the steps); and Oliver thought this was to make out, for certain, whether the flood was regularly rising or not. They could not imagine why he examined so closely as they saw him do the door lintel, and the window-frame. It did not occur to them, as it did to him, that the mill might break down under the force of the current.At last it was clear that he saw Roger; and from that moment, he scarcely took his eyes from his children. Oliver put his arm round Mildred’s neck, and said in her ear,—“I know what father is watching us for. He is afraid that Stephen is here too, and no one to take care of us;—not even Ailwin.”“Perhaps Stephen is here,—in the wood,” cried Mildred, in terror. “I wish this water would make haste and run away, and let us get home.”“It cannot run faster than it does. Look how the waves dash along! That is the worst of it:—it shows what a quantity there is, where this came from. But I don’t believe Stephen is here. I have a good mind to ask Roger, and make him tell me.”“No, don’t, Oliver! Stephen may be drowned. Do not put him in mind.”“Why, you see he does not care for anything. He is teasing some live thing at this minute,—there, on the ground.”Oliver himself forgot everything but the live animals before his eyes, when he saw how many there were under the trees. The grass was swarming with mice, moles, and small snakes; while rabbits cocked up their little white tails, in all directions, and partridges flew out of every bush, and hares started from every hollow that the boy looked into.“All soaked out of their holes;—don’t know what to do with themselves;—fine sport for those that have a mind to it,” said Roger, as he lay on the ground, pulling back a little mouse by its long tail, as often as it tried to run away.“You have no mind for sport to-day, I suppose, Roger. I should not think anybody has.”“I don’t know;—I’m rarely hungry,” said the boy.“So were we; but we forgot it again. Father is in the mill there...”“You need not tell me that. Don’t I see him?”“But we think he is looking out for Stephen.”“He won’t find him,” said Roger, in a very low voice; so low that Oliver was not sure what he said.“He is not here on the hill, then, Roger?”“On the hill,—no! I don’t know where he is, nor the woman either. I suppose they are drowned, as I was, nearly. If they did not swim as I did, they must be drowned: and they could hardly do that, as I had the dog.”The children looked at each other; and their looks told that they thought Roger was shocked and sorry, though he tried not to appear so.“There might have been a boat, perhaps, out on the carr. Don’t you think the country-people in the hills would get out boats when they saw the flood spreading?”“Boats, no! The hill-people have not above three boats among them all. There are about three near the ponds; and they are like nut-shells. How should any boat live in such a flood as that? Why, that flood would sweep a ship out to sea in a minute. You need not think about boats, I can tell you.”“But won’t anybody send a boat for us?” inquired Mildred, who had drawn near to listen. “If they don’t send a boat, and the flood goes on, what are we to do? We can’t live here, with nothing to eat, and no beds, and no shelter, if it should rain.”“Are you now beginning to cry about that? Are you now beginning to find that out, after all this time?” said Roger, contemptuously.“I thought we should get away,” sobbed the little girl. “I thought a boat or something would come.”“A pretty silly thing you must be!” exclaimed Roger.“If she is silly, I am silly too,” declared Oliver. “I am not sure that it is silly to look for a boat. There are plenty out on the coast there.”“They are all dashed to pieces long ago,” decided Roger. “And they that let in the flood will take good care you don’t get out of it,—you, and your outlanders. It is all along of you that I am in this scrape. But it was shameful of them not to give us notice;—it was too bad to catch us in the same trap with you. If uncle is drowned, and I ever get out alive, I will be revenged on them.”Mildred stopped crying, as well as she could, to listen; but she felt like Oliver when he said,—“I don’t know a word of what you mean.”“I dare say not. You foreigners never know anything like other people.”“But won’t you tell us? Who made this flood?”“To be sure, you weren’t meant to know this. It would not have done to show you the way out of the trap. Why—the Parliament Committee at Lincoln ordered the Snow-sewer sluice to be pulled up to-day, to drown the king’s lands, and get rid of his tenants. It will be as good as a battle gained to them.”The children were aghast at the wickedness of this deed. They would not believe it. It would have been tyrannical and cruel to have obliged the settlers, who were not interested in a quarrel between the king of England and his people, to enlist, and be shot down in war. They would have complained of this as tyrannical and cruel. But when they were living in peace and quiet on their farms, paying their rents, and inclined to show good-will to everybody, to pull up the flood-gates, and let in the sea and the rivers to drown them because they lived in the king’s lands, was a cruelty too dreadful to be believed. Oliver and Mildred did not believe it. They were sure their father would not believe it; and that their mother, if ever she should return to her home and family, would bring a very different account—that the whole misfortune would turn out to be accidental. So they felt assured: but the fact was as Roger had said. The Snow-sewer sluice had been pulled up, by the orders of the Committee of the Parliament, then sitting at Lincoln: and it was done to destroy the king’s new lands, and deprive him of the support of his tenants. The jealous country-people round hoped also that it would prevent foreigners from coming to live in England, however much they might want such a refuge.Some of the sufferers knew how their misfortune happened. Others might be thankful that they did not; for the thought of the malice of their enemies must have been more bitter than the fear of ruin and death.

Mrs Linacre went to the spring as usual, the next morning. If the weather had been doubtful—if there had been any pretence for supposing that the day might not be fine, she would have remained at home. But she looked in vain all round the sky for a cloud: and the wide expanse of fields and meadows in the Levels, with their waving corn and fresh green grass, seemed to bask in the sunshine, as if they felt its luxury. It was a glowing August day;—just such a day as would bring out the invalids from Gainsborough to drink the waters;—just such a day as would tempt the traveller to stop under the shady shed, where he could see waters bubbling up, and taste of the famous medicinal spring, which would cure the present evil of heat, whatever effect it might have on any more lasting ailment. It was just the day when Mrs Linacre must not be missed from her post, and when it would be wrong to give up the earnings which she might expect before sun-down. So she desired her children not to leave the premises,—not even to go out of their father’s sight and hearing; and left them, secure, at least, that they would obey her wishes.

They were quite willing to do so. Mildred looked behind her, every few minutes, while she worked in the garden, to see whether Roger was not there, and at every rustle that the birds made among the trees on the Red-hill,—the eminence behind the house,—she fancied that some one was hidden there. Oliver let his tools and his alabaster lie hidden, much as he longed to be at work with them. Mildred had lost her greatest treasure,—the white hen. He must take care of his greatest treasure. Twice, in the course of the morning, he went in, having thought of a safer place; and twice more he put them back among the straw, as safest there after all. He let them alone at last, on Mildred saying that she was afraid Roger might somehow discover why he went in and out so often.

They ran to the mill three or four times to tell their father that the brown tent was still under the bank in the carr, and that they could see nobody; though the wild-ducks and geese made such a fluttering and noise, now and then, that it seemed as if some one was lurking about the ponds. Often in the course of the morning, too, did Mr Linacre look out of the mill-window, or nod to them from the top of the steps, that they might see that he did not forget them. Meantime, the white smoke curled up from the kitchen chimney, as Ailwin cooked the dinner; and little George’s voice and hers were often heard from within, as if they were having some fun together.

The children were very hot, and began to say that they were hungry, and thought dinner-time was near, when they suddenly felt a strong rush of wind from the west. Oliver lost his cap, and was running after it, when both heard a loud shout from their father, and looked up. They had never heard him shout so loud as he now did, bidding them run up the Red-hill that moment. He waved his arm and his cap in that direction, as if he was mad. Mildred scampered up the hill. She did not know why, nor what was the meaning of the rolling, roaring thunder which seemed to convulse the air: but her head was full of Roger; and she thought it was some mischief of his. One part of the Red-hill was very steep, and the ground soft. Her feet slipped on the moss first, and when she had got above the moss, the red earth crumbled; and she went back at every step, till she caught hold of some brambles, and then of the trunk of a tree; so that, trembling and panting, she reached at last the top of the eminence.

When she looked round, she saw a rushing, roaring river where the garden had been, just before. Rough waters were dashing up against the hill on which she stood,—against the house,—and against the mill. She saw the flood spreading, as rapidly as the light at sunrise, over the whole expanse of the Levels. She saw another flood bursting in from the Humber, on the north-east, and meeting that which had just swept by;—she saw the two floods swallowing up field after field, meadow after meadow, splashing up against every house, and surrounding all, so that the roofs, and the stacks beside them, looked like so many little islands. She saw these things in a moment, but did not heed them till afterwards,—for, where was Oliver?

Oliver was safe, though it was rather a wonder that he was so, considering his care for his cap. Oliver was an orderly boy, accustomed to take great care of his things; and it did not occur to him to let his cap go, when he had to run for his life. He had to part with it, however. He was flying after it, when another shout from his father made him look round; and then he saw the wall of water, as he called it, rolling on directly upon the house. He gave a prodigious spring across the garden ditch, and up the hill-side, and but just escaped; for the wind which immediately preceded the flood blew him down; and it was clinging to the trunk of a tree that saved him, as his sister had been saved just before. As it was, his feet were wet. Oliver panted and trembled like his sister, but he was safe.

Every one was safe. Ailwin appeared at an upper window, exhibiting little George. Mr Linacre stood, with folded arms, in the doorway of his mill; and his wife was (he was thankful to remember) on the side of a high hill, far away. The children and their father knew, while the flood was roaring between them, what all were thinking of; and at the same moment, the miller and his boy waved, the one his hat, and the other a green bough, high and joyously over their heads. Little George saw this from the window, and clapped his hands, and jumped, as Ailwin held him on the window-sill.

“Look at Geordie!” cried Mildred. “Do look at him! Don’t you think you hear him now?”

This happy mood could not last very long, however, as the waters, instead of going down, were evidently rising every moment. From the first, the flood had been too deep and rapid to allow of the miller crossing from his mill to his house. He was a poor swimmer; and no swimmer, he thought, could have avoided being carried away into the wide marsh, where there was no help. Then, instead of the stream slackening, it rushed more furiously as it rose,—rose first over the wall of the yard, and up to the fourth—fifth—sixth step of the mill-ladder, and then almost into the branches of the apple-trees in the garden.

“I hope you will not mind being hungry, Mildred,” said her brother, after a time of silence. “We are not likely to have any dinner to-day, I think.”

“I don’t mind that, very much,” said Mildred, “but how do you think we are to get away, with this great river between us and home?”

“We shall see what father does,” said Oliver. “He is further off still, on the other side.”

“But what is all this water? When will it go away?”

“I am afraid the embankments have burst. And yet the weather has been fine enough lately. Perhaps the sluices are broken up.”

Seeing that Mildred did not understand the more for what he said, he explained—

“You know, all these Levels were watery grounds once; more wet than the carr yonder. Well,—great clay banks were made to keep out the Humber waters, over there, to the north-east, and on the west and north-west yonder, to keep two or three rivers there from overflowing the land. Then several canals and ditches were cut, to drain the land; and there are great gates put up, here and there, to let the waters in and out, as they are wanted. I am afraid those gates are gone, or the clay banks broken down, so that the sea and the rivers are pouring in all the water they have.”

“But when will it be over? Will it ever run off again? Shall we ever get home again?”

“I do not know anything about it. We must wait, and watch what father will do. See! What is this coming?”

“A dead horse!” exclaimed Mildred. “Drowned, I suppose. Don’t you think so, Oliver?”

“Drowned, of course.—Do you know, Mildred,” he continued, after a silence, during which he was looking towards the sheds in the yard, while his sister’s eyes were following the body of the horse as it was swept along, now whirled round in an eddy, and now going clear over the hedge into the carr,—“do you know, Mildred,” said Oliver, “I think father will be completely ruined by this flood.”

“Do you?” said Mildred, who did not quite know what it was to be ruined. “How? Why?”

“Why, it was bad enough that so much gypsum was spoiled yesterday. I am afraid now the whole quarry will be spoiled. And then I doubt whether the harvest will not be ruined all through the Levels: and I am pretty sure nothing will be growing in the garden when the waters are gone. That was not our horse that went by; but our horse may be drowned, and the cow, and the sow, and everything.”

“Not the fowls,” said Mildred. “Look at them, all in a row on the top of the cow-shed. They will not be drowned, at any rate.”

“But then they may be starved. O dear!” he continued, with a start of recollection, “I wonder whether Ailwin has thought of moving the meal and the grain up-stairs. It will be all rotted and spoiled if the water runs through it.”

He shouted, and made signs to Ailwin, with all his might; but in vain. She could not hear a word he said, or make anything of his signs. He was vexed, and said Ailwin was always stupid.

“So she is,” replied Mildred; “but it does not signify now. Look how the water is pouring out of the parlour-window. The meal and grain must have been wet through long ago. Is not that a pretty waterfall? A waterfall from our parlour-window, down upon the tulip-bed! How very odd!”

“If one could think how to feed these poor animals,” said Oliver,—“and the fowls! If there was anything here that one could get for them! One might cut a little grass for the cow;—but there is nothing else.”

“Only the leaves of the trees, and a few blackberries, when they are ripe,” said Mildred, looking round her, “and flowers,—wild-flowers, and a few that mother planted.”

“The bees!” cried Oliver. “Let us save them. They can feed themselves. We will save the bees.”

“Why, you don’t think they are drowned?” said Mildred.

The bees were not drowned; but they were in more danger of it than Mildred supposed. Their little shed was placed on the side of the Red-hill, so as to overlook the flowery garden. The waters stood among the posts of this shed; and the hives themselves shook with every wave that rolled along.

“You cannot do it, Oliver,” cried Mildred, as her brother crept down the slope to the back of the shed. “You can never get round, Oliver. You will slip in, Oliver!”

Oliver looked round and nodded, as there was no use in speaking in such a noise. He presently showed that he did not mean to go round to the front of the shed. That would never have done; for the flood had washed away the soil there, and left nothing to stand upon. He broke away the boards at the back of the bee-shed, which were old and loosely fastened. He was glad he had come; for the bees were bustling about in great confusion and distress, evidently aware that something great was the matter. Oliver seized one of the hives, with the board it stood on, and carried it, as steadily as he could, to a sunny part of the hill, where he put it down on the grass. He then went for another, asking Mildred to come part of the way down to receive the second hive, and put it by the first, as he saw there was not a moment to lose. She did so; but she trembled so much, that it was probable she would have let the hive fall, if it had ever been in her hands. It never was, however. The soil was now melting away in the water, where Oliver had stood firmly but a few minutes before. He had to take great care, and to change his footing every instant; and it was not without slipping and sliding, and wet feet, that he brought away the second hive. Mildred saw how hot he was, as he sat resting, with the hive, before climbing the bank, and begged that he would not try any more.

“These poor bees!” exclaimed Oliver, beginning to move again, on the thought of the bees being drowned. But he had done all he could. The water boiled up between the shed and the bank, lifted the whole structure, and swept it away. Oliver hastened to put down the second hive beside the first; and when he returned, saw that the posts had sunk, the boards were floating away, and the remaining hive itself sailing down the stream.

“How it rocks!” cried Mildred. “I wish it would turn quite over, so that the poor things might get out, and fly away.”

“They never will,” said Oliver. “I wish I had thought of the bees a little sooner. It is very odd that you did not, Mildred.”

“I don’t know how to think of anything,” said Mildred, dolefully; “it is all so odd and so frightful!”

“Well, don’t cry, if you can help it, dear,” said her brother. “We shall see what father will do. He won’t cry;—I am sure of that.”

Mildred laughed: for she never had seen her father cry.

“He was not far off crying yesterday, though,” said Oliver, “when he saw your poor hen lying dead. He looked—but, O Mildred! What can have become of the Redfurns? We have, been thinking all this while about the bees; and we never once remembered the Redfurns. Why, their tent was scarcely bigger than our hives; and I am sure it could not stand a minute against the flood.”

While he spoke, Oliver was running to the part of the hill which commanded the widest view of the carr, and Mildred was following at his heels,—a good deal startled by the hares which leaped across her path. There seemed to be more hares now on the hill than she had seen in all her life before. She could not ask about the hares, however, when she saw the brown tent, or a piece of it, flapping about in the water, a great way off, and sweeping along with the current.

“Hark! What was that? Did you hear?” said Oliver, turning very pale.

“I thought I heard a child crying a great way off,” said Mildred, trembling.

“It was not a child, dear. It was a shriek,—a woman’s shriek, I am afraid. I am afraid it is Nan Redfurn, somewhere in the carr. O dear, if they should all be drowned, and nobody there to help them!”

“No, no,—I don’t believe it,” said Mildred. “They have got up somewhere,—climbed up something,—that bank or something.”

They heard nothing more, amidst the dash of the flood, and they fancied they could see some figures moving on the ridge of the bank, far out over the carr. When they were tired of straining their eyes, they looked about them, and saw, in a smoother piece of water near their hill, a dog swimming, and seeming to labour very much.

“It has got something fastened to it,” cried Mildred;—“something tied round its neck.”

“It is somebody swimming,” replied Oliver. “They will get safe here now. Cannot we help them? I wish I had a rope! A long switch may do. I will get a long switch.”

“Yes, cut a long switch,” cried Mildred: and she pulled and tugged at a long tough thorny bramble, not minding its pricking her fingers and tearing her frock. She could not help starting at the immense number of large birds that flew out, and rabbits that ran away between her feet, while she was about it; but she never left hold, and dragged the long bramble down to the part of the hill that the dog seemed to be trying to reach. Oliver was already there, holding a slip of ash, such as he had sometimes cut for a fishing-rod.

“It is Roger, I do believe; but I see nothing of the others,” said he. “Look at his head, as it bobs up and down. Is it not Roger?”

“O dear! I hope not!” cried Mildred, in a tone of despair. “What shall we do if he comes?”

“We must see that afterwards: we must save him first. Now for it!”

As Oliver spoke, the dog ducked, and came up again without Roger, swimming lightly to the bank, and leaping ashore with a bark. Roger was there, however,—very near, but they supposed, exhausted, for he seemed to fall back, and sink, on catching hold of Oliver’s switch, and by the jerk twitched it out of the boy’s hand.

“Try again!” shouted Oliver, as he laid Mildred’s bramble along the water. “Don’t let go, Mildred.”

Mildred let the thorns run deep into her fingers without leaving her hold. Roger grasped the other end: and they pulled, without jerking, and with all their strength, till he reached the bank, and they could help him out with their hands.

“Oh, I am so glad you are safe, Roger!” said Oliver.

“You might have found something better than that thorny switch to throw me,” said Roger. “My hands are all blood with the spikes.”

“Look at hers!” cried Oliver, intending to show the state that his sister’s hands were in, for Roger’s sake; but Mildred pulled away her hands, and hid them behind her as she retreated, saying,—

“No, no. Never mind that now.”

Oliver saw how drenched the poor boy looked, and forgave whatever he might say. He asked Mildred to go back to the place where they had been standing, opposite the house; and he would come to her there presently. He then begged Roger to slip off his coat and trousers, that they might wring the wet out of them. He thought they would soon dry in the sun. But Roger pushed him away with his shoulder, and said he knew what he wanted;—he wanted to see what he had got about him. He would knock anybody down who touched his pockets. It was plain that Roger did not choose to be helped in any way; so Oliver soon ran off, and joined Mildred, as he had promised.

“I do not like to leave him, all wet, and so tired that I could knock him over with my little finger,” exclaimed Oliver. “But he won’t trust me about any thing.”

“There is father again! Tell him,” cried Mildred.

Both children shouted that Roger was here, and pointed behind them; but it was plain that their father could not make out a word they said, though they had never called out so loud in their lives. Roger heard them, however, as they judged by seeing him skulking among the trees behind, watching what use they were making of his name.

The children thought their father was growing very anxious. He still waved his hat to them, now and then, when he looked their way; but they saw him gazing abroad, as if surprised that the rush of waters did not abate. They observed him glance often round the sky, as if for signs of wind; and they longed to know whether he thought a wind would do good or harm. They saw him bring out, for the third time, a rope which he had seemed to think too short to be of any use; and this appeared to be the case, now as at first. Then he stooped down, as if to make a mark on the side of the white door-post (for the water had by this time quite hidden the steps); and Oliver thought this was to make out, for certain, whether the flood was regularly rising or not. They could not imagine why he examined so closely as they saw him do the door lintel, and the window-frame. It did not occur to them, as it did to him, that the mill might break down under the force of the current.

At last it was clear that he saw Roger; and from that moment, he scarcely took his eyes from his children. Oliver put his arm round Mildred’s neck, and said in her ear,—

“I know what father is watching us for. He is afraid that Stephen is here too, and no one to take care of us;—not even Ailwin.”

“Perhaps Stephen is here,—in the wood,” cried Mildred, in terror. “I wish this water would make haste and run away, and let us get home.”

“It cannot run faster than it does. Look how the waves dash along! That is the worst of it:—it shows what a quantity there is, where this came from. But I don’t believe Stephen is here. I have a good mind to ask Roger, and make him tell me.”

“No, don’t, Oliver! Stephen may be drowned. Do not put him in mind.”

“Why, you see he does not care for anything. He is teasing some live thing at this minute,—there, on the ground.”

Oliver himself forgot everything but the live animals before his eyes, when he saw how many there were under the trees. The grass was swarming with mice, moles, and small snakes; while rabbits cocked up their little white tails, in all directions, and partridges flew out of every bush, and hares started from every hollow that the boy looked into.

“All soaked out of their holes;—don’t know what to do with themselves;—fine sport for those that have a mind to it,” said Roger, as he lay on the ground, pulling back a little mouse by its long tail, as often as it tried to run away.

“You have no mind for sport to-day, I suppose, Roger. I should not think anybody has.”

“I don’t know;—I’m rarely hungry,” said the boy.

“So were we; but we forgot it again. Father is in the mill there...”

“You need not tell me that. Don’t I see him?”

“But we think he is looking out for Stephen.”

“He won’t find him,” said Roger, in a very low voice; so low that Oliver was not sure what he said.

“He is not here on the hill, then, Roger?”

“On the hill,—no! I don’t know where he is, nor the woman either. I suppose they are drowned, as I was, nearly. If they did not swim as I did, they must be drowned: and they could hardly do that, as I had the dog.”

The children looked at each other; and their looks told that they thought Roger was shocked and sorry, though he tried not to appear so.

“There might have been a boat, perhaps, out on the carr. Don’t you think the country-people in the hills would get out boats when they saw the flood spreading?”

“Boats, no! The hill-people have not above three boats among them all. There are about three near the ponds; and they are like nut-shells. How should any boat live in such a flood as that? Why, that flood would sweep a ship out to sea in a minute. You need not think about boats, I can tell you.”

“But won’t anybody send a boat for us?” inquired Mildred, who had drawn near to listen. “If they don’t send a boat, and the flood goes on, what are we to do? We can’t live here, with nothing to eat, and no beds, and no shelter, if it should rain.”

“Are you now beginning to cry about that? Are you now beginning to find that out, after all this time?” said Roger, contemptuously.

“I thought we should get away,” sobbed the little girl. “I thought a boat or something would come.”

“A pretty silly thing you must be!” exclaimed Roger.

“If she is silly, I am silly too,” declared Oliver. “I am not sure that it is silly to look for a boat. There are plenty out on the coast there.”

“They are all dashed to pieces long ago,” decided Roger. “And they that let in the flood will take good care you don’t get out of it,—you, and your outlanders. It is all along of you that I am in this scrape. But it was shameful of them not to give us notice;—it was too bad to catch us in the same trap with you. If uncle is drowned, and I ever get out alive, I will be revenged on them.”

Mildred stopped crying, as well as she could, to listen; but she felt like Oliver when he said,—

“I don’t know a word of what you mean.”

“I dare say not. You foreigners never know anything like other people.”

“But won’t you tell us? Who made this flood?”

“To be sure, you weren’t meant to know this. It would not have done to show you the way out of the trap. Why—the Parliament Committee at Lincoln ordered the Snow-sewer sluice to be pulled up to-day, to drown the king’s lands, and get rid of his tenants. It will be as good as a battle gained to them.”

The children were aghast at the wickedness of this deed. They would not believe it. It would have been tyrannical and cruel to have obliged the settlers, who were not interested in a quarrel between the king of England and his people, to enlist, and be shot down in war. They would have complained of this as tyrannical and cruel. But when they were living in peace and quiet on their farms, paying their rents, and inclined to show good-will to everybody, to pull up the flood-gates, and let in the sea and the rivers to drown them because they lived in the king’s lands, was a cruelty too dreadful to be believed. Oliver and Mildred did not believe it. They were sure their father would not believe it; and that their mother, if ever she should return to her home and family, would bring a very different account—that the whole misfortune would turn out to be accidental. So they felt assured: but the fact was as Roger had said. The Snow-sewer sluice had been pulled up, by the orders of the Committee of the Parliament, then sitting at Lincoln: and it was done to destroy the king’s new lands, and deprive him of the support of his tenants. The jealous country-people round hoped also that it would prevent foreigners from coming to live in England, however much they might want such a refuge.

Some of the sufferers knew how their misfortune happened. Others might be thankful that they did not; for the thought of the malice of their enemies must have been more bitter than the fear of ruin and death.

Chapter Four.A Hungry Day.“We shall see what father does,” was still the consolation with which Oliver kept down his sister’s fears. He had such confidence in his father’s knowing what was best to be done on all occasions, that he felt they had only to watch him, and imitate whatever he might attempt. They remained quiet on the island now, hungry and tired as they were, because he remained in the mill, and seemed to expect the water to subside. The most fearful thought was what they were to do after dark, if they should not get home before that. They supposed, at last, that their father was thinking of this too; for he began to move about, when the sun was near setting, more than he had done all the afternoon.They saw him go carefully down into the stream, and proceed cautiously for some way—till the water was up to his chin. Then he was buffeted about so terribly that Mildred could not bear to look. Both Oliver and Roger were sure, by what he ventured, and by the way he pulled himself back at last to the steps, that he had tied himself by the rope they had seen him measure. It was certainly too short for any good purpose; for he had to go back, having only wetted himself to the skin. They saw this by the yellow light from the west which shone upon the water. In a few minutes they could distinguish him no longer, though the mill stood up black against the sky, and in the midst of the gleaming flood.“Father will be wet, and so cold all night!” said Mildred, crying.“If I could only swim,” exclaimed Oliver, “I would get over to him somehow, and carry a rope from the house. I am sure there must be a rope long enough somewhere about the yard. If I could only swim, I would get to him.”“That you wouldn’t,” said Roger. “Your father can swim; and why does not he? Because nobody could swim across that stream. It is a torrent. It would carry any stout man out over the carr; and you would be no better than a twig in the middle of it.”“I am afraid now this torrent will not slacken,” said Oliver, thoughtfully. “I am afraid there is some hollow near which will keep up the current.”“What do you mean by that?”“They say in Holland, where they have floods sometimes, that when water flows into a hollow, it gets out in a current, and keeps it up for some way. Oh! The quarry!” he cried, with sudden recollection. “Mildred, let us go, and look what is doing on that side before it is dark.”They ran round the hill; and there they saw indeed that the flood was tumbling in the quarry, like water boiling in a pot. When it rushed out, it carried white earth with it, which made a long streak in the flood, and explained how it was that the stream between the house and the mill was whiter and more muddy than that between their hill and the house. At once it occurred to Roger that the stream between the hill and the house was probably less rapid than the other; and he said so. Oliver ran back; and so did Mildred, pleased at the bare idea of getting to the house.Once more arrived opposite the house, they saw a strange sight. The mill no longer stood in its right place. It had moved a good way down towards the carr. Not only that, but it was still moving. It was sailing away like a ship. After the first exclamation, even Roger stood as still as death to watch it. He neither moved nor spoke till the mill was out of sight in the dusk. When Mildred burst into a loud cry, and Oliver threw himself down, hiding his face on the ground, Roger spoke again.“Be quiet—you must,” he said, decidedly, to the little girl. “We must bestir ourselves now, instead of stopping to see what other folks will do.”“Oh, father! Father will be drowned!” cried they.“You don’t know that. If he drifts out to the Humber, which is likely, by the way he is going, some ship may pick him up—or he may light upon some high ground. We can’t settle that now, however; and the clear thing is that he wouldn’t wish us to starve, whether he drowns or not. Come, get up, lad!” said he, stirring Oliver with his foot.“Don’t lie there, Oliver; do get up!” begged Mildred.Oliver rose, and did all that Roger bade him.“You say there is a long rope somewhere about the house,” said Roger. “Where is it?”“There is one in the cow-shed, I know.”“And if I cannot get there, is there one in the house?”“In the lumber-room,” said Mildred. “The spare bed is tied round and round with a long rope—I don’t know how long.”“I wish we had set about it an hour ago,” muttered Roger, “instead of waiting for dark. A pretty set of fools we have been to lose the daylight! I say, lad, can you think of anyway of making a fire? Here are sticks enough, if one could set them alight.”“To cook a supper?” asked Mildred.“No; I mean to sup within doors; only we must do some work first.”Oliver had a steel knife; but it was too dark to look for a flint, if any other plan than a fire would do.“Well, don’t plague any more about a fire,” said Roger, “but listen to me. Can you climb a tree? I’ll be bound you can’t: and now you’ll die if you can’t.”“I can,” said Oliver; “but what is Mildred to do?”“We’ll see that afterwards. Which of these trees stands nearest to the nearest of yon upper windows?”Oliver and Mildred pointed out a young ash, which now quite bent over the water.“That is not strong enough,” said Roger, shaking the tree, and finding it loosened at the roots. “Show me a stouter one.”A well-grown beech was the next nearest. Roger pulled Oliver by the arm, and made him stand directly under the tree, with his sister beside him. He desired them not to move from where they were, and to give a loud halloo together, or a shriek (or anything that might be heard furthest)—about once in a minute for an hour to come, unless they should hear a rope fall into the tree, or anywhere near them. They were to watch for this rope, and use all their endeavours to catch it. There would be a weight at the end, which would make it easier to catch. Oliver must tie this rope to the trunk of the tree, stretching it tight, with all his strength, and then tying it so securely that no weight would unfasten it.“Mind you that,” said Roger. “If you don’t, you will be drowned, that’s all. Do as I tell you, and you’ll see what you will see.”Roger then whistled for his dog, snatched Oliver’s black ribbon from about his neck, and fastened it round the dog’s neck, to hold by. He then showed the dog the house, and forced him into the water, himself following, till the children could no longer see what became of them.“What do you think he means?” asked poor Mildred, shivering.“I don’t know exactly. He cannot mean that we are to climb over by a rope. I do not think I could do that; and I am sure you could not.”“Oh, no, no! Let us stay here! Stay with me under the trees, here, Oliver.”“Why, it would be much more comfortable to be at home by the fire. You are shivering now, already, as if it was winter: and the night will be very long, with nothing to eat.”“But Roger is gone; and I don’t like to be where he is,—he is such a rude boy! How he snatched your ribbon, and pulled you about! And he calls you ‘lad,’ when he might just as well say ‘Oliver.’”“We must not mind such things now, dear. And we must get home, if he can show us how. Think how glad Ailwin and George will be: and I am sure father would wish it, and mother too. You must not cry now, Mildred; indeed you must not. People must do what they can at such a time as this. Come, help me to shout. Shriek as loud and as long as ever you can.”“I wish I might say my prayers,” said Mildred, presently.“Do, dear. Kneel down here;—nobody sees us. Let us ask God to save father,—and us too, and George and Ailwin, if it pleases Him;—and Roger.”They kneeled down, and Oliver said aloud to God what was in his heart. It was a great comfort to them both; for they knew that while no human eye saw them in the starlight, under the tree, God heard their words, and understood their hearts.“Now again!” said Oliver, as they stood up.They raised a cry about once a minute, as nearly as they could guess: and they had given as many as thirty shouts, and began to find it very hard work, before anything happened to show them that it was of any use. Then something struck the tree over their heads, and pattered down among the leaves, touching Oliver’s head at last. He felt about, and caught the end of a rope, without having to climb the tree, to search for it. They set up a shout of a different kind now; for they really were very glad. This shout was answered by a gentle tug at the rope: but Oliver held fast, determined not to let anything pull the precious line out of his hand.“What have we here?” said he, as he felt a parcel tied to the rope, a little way from the end. He gave it to Mildred to untie and open; which she did with some trouble, wishing the evening was not so dark.It was a tinder-box.“There now!” said Oliver, “we shall soon know what we are about. Do you know where the tree was cut down, the other day?”“Close by? Yes.”“Well; bring a lapful of chips,—quick; and then any dry sticks you can find. We can get on twice as fast with a light; and then they will see from the house how we manage.”In a few minutes, there was a fire blazing near the tree. The rope must have come straight over from the house, without dipping once into the water; for not only were the flint and steel safe, but the tinder within, and the cloth that the box was done up in, were quite dry.“Roger is a clever fellow,—that is certain,” said Oliver. “Now for fastening the rope. Do you take care that the fire keeps up. Don’t spare for chips. Keep a good fire till I have done.”Oliver gave all his strength to pulling the rope tight, and winding it round the trunk of the beech, just above a large knob in the stem. It seemed to him that the rope stretched pretty evenly, as far as he could see,—not slanting either up or down; so that the sill of the upper window must be about upon a level with the great knob in the beech-trunk. Oliver tied knot upon knot, till no more rope was left to knot. It still hung too slack, if it was meant for a bridge. He did not think he could ever cross the water on a rope that would keep him dangling at every move: but he had pulled it tight with all his force, and he could do no more. When he had tied the last knot, he and Mildred stood in front of the fire, and raised one more great shout, waving their arms—sure now of being seen as well as heard.“Look! Look!” cried Oliver, “it is moving;—the rope is not so slack! They are tightening it. How much tighter it is than I could pull it! That must be Ailwin’s strong arm,—together with Roger’s.”“But still I never can creep across that way,” declared Mildred. “I wish you would not try. Oliver. Do stay with me!”“I will not leave you, dear: but we do not know what they mean us to do yet. There! Now the rope is shaking! We shall see something. Do you see anything coming? Don’t look at the flashing water. Fix your eye on the rope, with the light upon it. What do you see?”“I see something like a basket,—like one of our clothes’ baskets,—coming along the line.”It was one of Mrs Linacre’s clothes’ baskets, which was slung upon the rope; and Roger was in it. He did not stay a minute. He threw to Oliver a line which was fastened to the end of the basket, with which he might pull it over, from the window to the tree, when emptied of Roger. He was then to put Mildred into the basket, carefully keeping hold of the line, in order to pull it back for himself when his sister should be safely landed. Ailwin held a line fastened to the other end of the basket, with which to pull it the other way.Oliver was overjoyed. He said he had never seen anything so clever; and he asked Mildred whether she could possibly be afraid of riding over in this safe little carriage. He told her how to help her passage by pulling herself along the bridge-rope, as he called it, instead of hindering her progress by clinging to the rope as she sat in the basket. Taking care not to let go the line for a moment, he again examined the knots of the longer rope, and found they were all fast. In a few minutes he began hauling in his line, and the empty basket came over very easily.“How shall I get in?” asked Mildred, trembling.“Here,” said Oliver, stooping his back to her. “Climb upon my back. Now hold by the tree, and stand upon my shoulders. Don’t be afraid. You are light enough. Now, can’t you step in?”Feeling how much depended upon this, the little girl managed it. She tumbled into the basket, took a lesson from Oliver how to help her own passage, and earnestly begged him to take care of his line, that nothing might prevent his following her immediately. Then came a great tug, and she felt herself drawn back into the darkness. She did not like it at all. The water roared louder than ever as she hung over it; and the light which was cast upon it from the fire showed how rapidly it was shooting beneath. Then she saw Oliver go, and throw some more chips and twigs on the fire; and she knew by that that he could see her no longer. She worked as hard as she could, putting her hands one behind the other along the rope: but her hands were weak, and her head was very dizzy. She had had nothing to eat since breakfast, and was quite tired out.While still keeping her eyes upon Oliver, she felt a jerk. The basket knocked against something; and it made her quite sick. She immediately heard Ailwin’s voice saying, “’tis one of them, that’s certain. Well! If I didn’t think it was some vile conjuring trick, up to this very moment!”The poor dizzy child felt a strong arm passed round her waist, and found herself carried near a fire in a room. She faltered out, “Ailwin, get something for Oliver to eat. He will be here presently.”“That I will: and for you first. You shall both have a drop of my cherry-brandy too.”Mildred said she had rather have a draught of milk; but Ailwin said there was no milk. She had not been able to reach the cow, to milk her. What had poor little George done, then?—He had had some that had been left from the morning. Ailwin added that she was very sorry,—she could not tell how she came to be so forgetful; but she had never thought of not being able to milk the cow in the afternoon, and had drunk up all that George left of the milk; her regular dinner having been drowned in the kitchen. Neither had she remembered to bring anything eatable up-stairs with her when the flood drove her from the lower rooms. The flour and grain were now all under water. The vegetables were, no doubt, swimming about in the cellar; and the meat would have been where the flour was, at this moment, if Roger, who said he had no mind to be starved, had not somehow fished up a joint of mutton. This was now stewing over the fire; but it was little likely to be good; for besides there being no vegetables, the salt was all melted, and the water was none of the best. Indeed, the water was so bad that it could not be drunk alone: and again good Ailwin pressed a drop of her cherry-brandy. Mildred, however, preferred a cup of the broth, which, poor as it was, was all the better for the loaf—the only loaf of bread—being boiled in it.Just when Mildred thought she could stand at the window, and watch for Oliver, Oliver came in at the window. He was not too tired to have his wits about him, as Ailwin said;—wits, she added, that were worth more than hers. He had brought over some dry wood with him,—as much as the basket would hold; thinking that the peat-stack was probably all afloat, and the wood-heap wetted through. All were pleased at the prospect of keeping up a fire during this strange night. All agreed that the bridge-rope must be left as it was, while the flood lasted. There were wild animals and birds enough on the Red-hill to last for food for a long while; and there alone could they get fuel.“You can’t catch game without my dog,” cried Roger, surlily, to Ailwin; “and my dog shan’t put his nose to the ground, if you don’t feed him well: and he shall be where I am,—mind you that.”As he spoke, he opened the door to admit the dog, which Ailwin had put out upon the stairs, for the sake of her pet hen and chicks which were all in the room. The hen fluttered up to a beam below the ceiling, on the appearance of the dog, and the chicks cluttered about, till Ailwin and Mildred caught them, and kept them in their laps. They glanced timidly at Roger, remembering the fate of the white hen, the day before. Roger did not heed them. He had taken out his knife, forked up the mutton out of the kettle, and cut off the best half for himself and his dog.Probably Oliver was thinking that Roger deserved the best they could give him, for his late services; for he said,—“I am sure, Roger, Mildred and I shall never forget,—nor father and mother either, if ever they know, it,—what you have done for us to-night. We might have died on the Red-hill but for you.”“Stuff!” muttered Roger, as he sat, swinging his legs, with his open knife in his hand, and his mouth crammed,—“Stuff! As if I cared whether you and she sink or swim! I like sport that’s all.”Nobody spoke. Ailwin helped the children to the poor broth, and the remains of the meat, shaking her head when they begged her to take some. She whispered a good deal to Oliver about cherry-brandy; but he replied aloud that it looked and smelled very good; but that the only time he had tasted it, it made him rather giddy; and he did not wish to be giddy to-night;—there was so much to think about; and he was not at all sure that the flood had got to its height. He said no more, though his mind was full of his father. Neither he nor Mildred could mention their father to Ailwin to-night, even if Roger had been out of the way.Roger probably thought what Oliver did say very silly; for he sat laughing as he heard it, and for some time after. Half an hour later, when Ailwin passed near him, while she was laying down a bed for Oliver, so that they might be all together during this night of alarm, she thought there was a strong smell of brandy. She flew to her bottle, and found it empty,—not a drop left. Roger had drained it all. His head soon dropped upon his breast, and he fell from his chair in a drunken sleep. Mildred shrank back from him in horror; but Ailwin and Oliver rolled him into a corner of the room, where his dog lay down beside him.Ailwin could not refrain from giving him a kick, while he lay thus powerless, and sneering in his face because he could not see her.“Don’t, Ailwin,—don’t!” said Oliver. “Mildred and I should not have been here now but for him.”“And I should not have been terrified out of my wits, for these two hours past, nor have lost my cherry-brandy, but for him. Mercy! I shall never forget his popping up his face at that window, and sending his dog in before him. I was as sure as death that the flood was all of their making, and that they were come for me, after having carried off my master, and as I thought, you two.”“Why, Ailwin, what nonsense!” cried Mildred from her bed,—trembling all over as she spoke. “How could a boy make a flood?”“And you see what he has done, instead of carrying us off,” observed Oliver.“Well, it is almost worth my cherry-brandy to see him lie so,—dead drunk,—only it would be better still to see him really dead.—Well, that may be a wicked thing to say; but it is not so wicked as some things he has done;—and I am so mortally afraid of him!”“I wish you would say your prayers, Ailwin, instead of saying such things: and then, perhaps, you would find yourself not afraid of anybody.”“Well, that is almost as good as if the pastor had preached it. I will just hang up the chicks in the hand-basket, for fear of the dog; and then we will say our prayers, and go to sleep, please God. I am sure we all want it.”Oliver chose to examine first how high the water stood in the lower rooms. He lighted a piece of wood, and found that only two steps of the lower flight of stairs remained dry. Ailwin protested so earnestly that the waters had not risen for two or three hours, that he thought they might all lie down to sleep. Ailwin and he were the only ones who could keep watch. He did not think Ailwin’s watching would be worth much; he was so tired that he did not think he could keep awake; and he felt that he should be much more fit for all the business that lay before him for the next day, if he could get a good rest now. So he kissed little George, as he lay down beside him, and was soon as sound asleep as all his companions.

“We shall see what father does,” was still the consolation with which Oliver kept down his sister’s fears. He had such confidence in his father’s knowing what was best to be done on all occasions, that he felt they had only to watch him, and imitate whatever he might attempt. They remained quiet on the island now, hungry and tired as they were, because he remained in the mill, and seemed to expect the water to subside. The most fearful thought was what they were to do after dark, if they should not get home before that. They supposed, at last, that their father was thinking of this too; for he began to move about, when the sun was near setting, more than he had done all the afternoon.

They saw him go carefully down into the stream, and proceed cautiously for some way—till the water was up to his chin. Then he was buffeted about so terribly that Mildred could not bear to look. Both Oliver and Roger were sure, by what he ventured, and by the way he pulled himself back at last to the steps, that he had tied himself by the rope they had seen him measure. It was certainly too short for any good purpose; for he had to go back, having only wetted himself to the skin. They saw this by the yellow light from the west which shone upon the water. In a few minutes they could distinguish him no longer, though the mill stood up black against the sky, and in the midst of the gleaming flood.

“Father will be wet, and so cold all night!” said Mildred, crying.

“If I could only swim,” exclaimed Oliver, “I would get over to him somehow, and carry a rope from the house. I am sure there must be a rope long enough somewhere about the yard. If I could only swim, I would get to him.”

“That you wouldn’t,” said Roger. “Your father can swim; and why does not he? Because nobody could swim across that stream. It is a torrent. It would carry any stout man out over the carr; and you would be no better than a twig in the middle of it.”

“I am afraid now this torrent will not slacken,” said Oliver, thoughtfully. “I am afraid there is some hollow near which will keep up the current.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“They say in Holland, where they have floods sometimes, that when water flows into a hollow, it gets out in a current, and keeps it up for some way. Oh! The quarry!” he cried, with sudden recollection. “Mildred, let us go, and look what is doing on that side before it is dark.”

They ran round the hill; and there they saw indeed that the flood was tumbling in the quarry, like water boiling in a pot. When it rushed out, it carried white earth with it, which made a long streak in the flood, and explained how it was that the stream between the house and the mill was whiter and more muddy than that between their hill and the house. At once it occurred to Roger that the stream between the hill and the house was probably less rapid than the other; and he said so. Oliver ran back; and so did Mildred, pleased at the bare idea of getting to the house.

Once more arrived opposite the house, they saw a strange sight. The mill no longer stood in its right place. It had moved a good way down towards the carr. Not only that, but it was still moving. It was sailing away like a ship. After the first exclamation, even Roger stood as still as death to watch it. He neither moved nor spoke till the mill was out of sight in the dusk. When Mildred burst into a loud cry, and Oliver threw himself down, hiding his face on the ground, Roger spoke again.

“Be quiet—you must,” he said, decidedly, to the little girl. “We must bestir ourselves now, instead of stopping to see what other folks will do.”

“Oh, father! Father will be drowned!” cried they.

“You don’t know that. If he drifts out to the Humber, which is likely, by the way he is going, some ship may pick him up—or he may light upon some high ground. We can’t settle that now, however; and the clear thing is that he wouldn’t wish us to starve, whether he drowns or not. Come, get up, lad!” said he, stirring Oliver with his foot.

“Don’t lie there, Oliver; do get up!” begged Mildred.

Oliver rose, and did all that Roger bade him.

“You say there is a long rope somewhere about the house,” said Roger. “Where is it?”

“There is one in the cow-shed, I know.”

“And if I cannot get there, is there one in the house?”

“In the lumber-room,” said Mildred. “The spare bed is tied round and round with a long rope—I don’t know how long.”

“I wish we had set about it an hour ago,” muttered Roger, “instead of waiting for dark. A pretty set of fools we have been to lose the daylight! I say, lad, can you think of anyway of making a fire? Here are sticks enough, if one could set them alight.”

“To cook a supper?” asked Mildred.

“No; I mean to sup within doors; only we must do some work first.”

Oliver had a steel knife; but it was too dark to look for a flint, if any other plan than a fire would do.

“Well, don’t plague any more about a fire,” said Roger, “but listen to me. Can you climb a tree? I’ll be bound you can’t: and now you’ll die if you can’t.”

“I can,” said Oliver; “but what is Mildred to do?”

“We’ll see that afterwards. Which of these trees stands nearest to the nearest of yon upper windows?”

Oliver and Mildred pointed out a young ash, which now quite bent over the water.

“That is not strong enough,” said Roger, shaking the tree, and finding it loosened at the roots. “Show me a stouter one.”

A well-grown beech was the next nearest. Roger pulled Oliver by the arm, and made him stand directly under the tree, with his sister beside him. He desired them not to move from where they were, and to give a loud halloo together, or a shriek (or anything that might be heard furthest)—about once in a minute for an hour to come, unless they should hear a rope fall into the tree, or anywhere near them. They were to watch for this rope, and use all their endeavours to catch it. There would be a weight at the end, which would make it easier to catch. Oliver must tie this rope to the trunk of the tree, stretching it tight, with all his strength, and then tying it so securely that no weight would unfasten it.

“Mind you that,” said Roger. “If you don’t, you will be drowned, that’s all. Do as I tell you, and you’ll see what you will see.”

Roger then whistled for his dog, snatched Oliver’s black ribbon from about his neck, and fastened it round the dog’s neck, to hold by. He then showed the dog the house, and forced him into the water, himself following, till the children could no longer see what became of them.

“What do you think he means?” asked poor Mildred, shivering.

“I don’t know exactly. He cannot mean that we are to climb over by a rope. I do not think I could do that; and I am sure you could not.”

“Oh, no, no! Let us stay here! Stay with me under the trees, here, Oliver.”

“Why, it would be much more comfortable to be at home by the fire. You are shivering now, already, as if it was winter: and the night will be very long, with nothing to eat.”

“But Roger is gone; and I don’t like to be where he is,—he is such a rude boy! How he snatched your ribbon, and pulled you about! And he calls you ‘lad,’ when he might just as well say ‘Oliver.’”

“We must not mind such things now, dear. And we must get home, if he can show us how. Think how glad Ailwin and George will be: and I am sure father would wish it, and mother too. You must not cry now, Mildred; indeed you must not. People must do what they can at such a time as this. Come, help me to shout. Shriek as loud and as long as ever you can.”

“I wish I might say my prayers,” said Mildred, presently.

“Do, dear. Kneel down here;—nobody sees us. Let us ask God to save father,—and us too, and George and Ailwin, if it pleases Him;—and Roger.”

They kneeled down, and Oliver said aloud to God what was in his heart. It was a great comfort to them both; for they knew that while no human eye saw them in the starlight, under the tree, God heard their words, and understood their hearts.

“Now again!” said Oliver, as they stood up.

They raised a cry about once a minute, as nearly as they could guess: and they had given as many as thirty shouts, and began to find it very hard work, before anything happened to show them that it was of any use. Then something struck the tree over their heads, and pattered down among the leaves, touching Oliver’s head at last. He felt about, and caught the end of a rope, without having to climb the tree, to search for it. They set up a shout of a different kind now; for they really were very glad. This shout was answered by a gentle tug at the rope: but Oliver held fast, determined not to let anything pull the precious line out of his hand.

“What have we here?” said he, as he felt a parcel tied to the rope, a little way from the end. He gave it to Mildred to untie and open; which she did with some trouble, wishing the evening was not so dark.

It was a tinder-box.

“There now!” said Oliver, “we shall soon know what we are about. Do you know where the tree was cut down, the other day?”

“Close by? Yes.”

“Well; bring a lapful of chips,—quick; and then any dry sticks you can find. We can get on twice as fast with a light; and then they will see from the house how we manage.”

In a few minutes, there was a fire blazing near the tree. The rope must have come straight over from the house, without dipping once into the water; for not only were the flint and steel safe, but the tinder within, and the cloth that the box was done up in, were quite dry.

“Roger is a clever fellow,—that is certain,” said Oliver. “Now for fastening the rope. Do you take care that the fire keeps up. Don’t spare for chips. Keep a good fire till I have done.”

Oliver gave all his strength to pulling the rope tight, and winding it round the trunk of the beech, just above a large knob in the stem. It seemed to him that the rope stretched pretty evenly, as far as he could see,—not slanting either up or down; so that the sill of the upper window must be about upon a level with the great knob in the beech-trunk. Oliver tied knot upon knot, till no more rope was left to knot. It still hung too slack, if it was meant for a bridge. He did not think he could ever cross the water on a rope that would keep him dangling at every move: but he had pulled it tight with all his force, and he could do no more. When he had tied the last knot, he and Mildred stood in front of the fire, and raised one more great shout, waving their arms—sure now of being seen as well as heard.

“Look! Look!” cried Oliver, “it is moving;—the rope is not so slack! They are tightening it. How much tighter it is than I could pull it! That must be Ailwin’s strong arm,—together with Roger’s.”

“But still I never can creep across that way,” declared Mildred. “I wish you would not try. Oliver. Do stay with me!”

“I will not leave you, dear: but we do not know what they mean us to do yet. There! Now the rope is shaking! We shall see something. Do you see anything coming? Don’t look at the flashing water. Fix your eye on the rope, with the light upon it. What do you see?”

“I see something like a basket,—like one of our clothes’ baskets,—coming along the line.”

It was one of Mrs Linacre’s clothes’ baskets, which was slung upon the rope; and Roger was in it. He did not stay a minute. He threw to Oliver a line which was fastened to the end of the basket, with which he might pull it over, from the window to the tree, when emptied of Roger. He was then to put Mildred into the basket, carefully keeping hold of the line, in order to pull it back for himself when his sister should be safely landed. Ailwin held a line fastened to the other end of the basket, with which to pull it the other way.

Oliver was overjoyed. He said he had never seen anything so clever; and he asked Mildred whether she could possibly be afraid of riding over in this safe little carriage. He told her how to help her passage by pulling herself along the bridge-rope, as he called it, instead of hindering her progress by clinging to the rope as she sat in the basket. Taking care not to let go the line for a moment, he again examined the knots of the longer rope, and found they were all fast. In a few minutes he began hauling in his line, and the empty basket came over very easily.

“How shall I get in?” asked Mildred, trembling.

“Here,” said Oliver, stooping his back to her. “Climb upon my back. Now hold by the tree, and stand upon my shoulders. Don’t be afraid. You are light enough. Now, can’t you step in?”

Feeling how much depended upon this, the little girl managed it. She tumbled into the basket, took a lesson from Oliver how to help her own passage, and earnestly begged him to take care of his line, that nothing might prevent his following her immediately. Then came a great tug, and she felt herself drawn back into the darkness. She did not like it at all. The water roared louder than ever as she hung over it; and the light which was cast upon it from the fire showed how rapidly it was shooting beneath. Then she saw Oliver go, and throw some more chips and twigs on the fire; and she knew by that that he could see her no longer. She worked as hard as she could, putting her hands one behind the other along the rope: but her hands were weak, and her head was very dizzy. She had had nothing to eat since breakfast, and was quite tired out.

While still keeping her eyes upon Oliver, she felt a jerk. The basket knocked against something; and it made her quite sick. She immediately heard Ailwin’s voice saying, “’tis one of them, that’s certain. Well! If I didn’t think it was some vile conjuring trick, up to this very moment!”

The poor dizzy child felt a strong arm passed round her waist, and found herself carried near a fire in a room. She faltered out, “Ailwin, get something for Oliver to eat. He will be here presently.”

“That I will: and for you first. You shall both have a drop of my cherry-brandy too.”

Mildred said she had rather have a draught of milk; but Ailwin said there was no milk. She had not been able to reach the cow, to milk her. What had poor little George done, then?—He had had some that had been left from the morning. Ailwin added that she was very sorry,—she could not tell how she came to be so forgetful; but she had never thought of not being able to milk the cow in the afternoon, and had drunk up all that George left of the milk; her regular dinner having been drowned in the kitchen. Neither had she remembered to bring anything eatable up-stairs with her when the flood drove her from the lower rooms. The flour and grain were now all under water. The vegetables were, no doubt, swimming about in the cellar; and the meat would have been where the flour was, at this moment, if Roger, who said he had no mind to be starved, had not somehow fished up a joint of mutton. This was now stewing over the fire; but it was little likely to be good; for besides there being no vegetables, the salt was all melted, and the water was none of the best. Indeed, the water was so bad that it could not be drunk alone: and again good Ailwin pressed a drop of her cherry-brandy. Mildred, however, preferred a cup of the broth, which, poor as it was, was all the better for the loaf—the only loaf of bread—being boiled in it.

Just when Mildred thought she could stand at the window, and watch for Oliver, Oliver came in at the window. He was not too tired to have his wits about him, as Ailwin said;—wits, she added, that were worth more than hers. He had brought over some dry wood with him,—as much as the basket would hold; thinking that the peat-stack was probably all afloat, and the wood-heap wetted through. All were pleased at the prospect of keeping up a fire during this strange night. All agreed that the bridge-rope must be left as it was, while the flood lasted. There were wild animals and birds enough on the Red-hill to last for food for a long while; and there alone could they get fuel.

“You can’t catch game without my dog,” cried Roger, surlily, to Ailwin; “and my dog shan’t put his nose to the ground, if you don’t feed him well: and he shall be where I am,—mind you that.”

As he spoke, he opened the door to admit the dog, which Ailwin had put out upon the stairs, for the sake of her pet hen and chicks which were all in the room. The hen fluttered up to a beam below the ceiling, on the appearance of the dog, and the chicks cluttered about, till Ailwin and Mildred caught them, and kept them in their laps. They glanced timidly at Roger, remembering the fate of the white hen, the day before. Roger did not heed them. He had taken out his knife, forked up the mutton out of the kettle, and cut off the best half for himself and his dog.

Probably Oliver was thinking that Roger deserved the best they could give him, for his late services; for he said,—

“I am sure, Roger, Mildred and I shall never forget,—nor father and mother either, if ever they know, it,—what you have done for us to-night. We might have died on the Red-hill but for you.”

“Stuff!” muttered Roger, as he sat, swinging his legs, with his open knife in his hand, and his mouth crammed,—“Stuff! As if I cared whether you and she sink or swim! I like sport that’s all.”

Nobody spoke. Ailwin helped the children to the poor broth, and the remains of the meat, shaking her head when they begged her to take some. She whispered a good deal to Oliver about cherry-brandy; but he replied aloud that it looked and smelled very good; but that the only time he had tasted it, it made him rather giddy; and he did not wish to be giddy to-night;—there was so much to think about; and he was not at all sure that the flood had got to its height. He said no more, though his mind was full of his father. Neither he nor Mildred could mention their father to Ailwin to-night, even if Roger had been out of the way.

Roger probably thought what Oliver did say very silly; for he sat laughing as he heard it, and for some time after. Half an hour later, when Ailwin passed near him, while she was laying down a bed for Oliver, so that they might be all together during this night of alarm, she thought there was a strong smell of brandy. She flew to her bottle, and found it empty,—not a drop left. Roger had drained it all. His head soon dropped upon his breast, and he fell from his chair in a drunken sleep. Mildred shrank back from him in horror; but Ailwin and Oliver rolled him into a corner of the room, where his dog lay down beside him.

Ailwin could not refrain from giving him a kick, while he lay thus powerless, and sneering in his face because he could not see her.

“Don’t, Ailwin,—don’t!” said Oliver. “Mildred and I should not have been here now but for him.”

“And I should not have been terrified out of my wits, for these two hours past, nor have lost my cherry-brandy, but for him. Mercy! I shall never forget his popping up his face at that window, and sending his dog in before him. I was as sure as death that the flood was all of their making, and that they were come for me, after having carried off my master, and as I thought, you two.”

“Why, Ailwin, what nonsense!” cried Mildred from her bed,—trembling all over as she spoke. “How could a boy make a flood?”

“And you see what he has done, instead of carrying us off,” observed Oliver.

“Well, it is almost worth my cherry-brandy to see him lie so,—dead drunk,—only it would be better still to see him really dead.—Well, that may be a wicked thing to say; but it is not so wicked as some things he has done;—and I am so mortally afraid of him!”

“I wish you would say your prayers, Ailwin, instead of saying such things: and then, perhaps, you would find yourself not afraid of anybody.”

“Well, that is almost as good as if the pastor had preached it. I will just hang up the chicks in the hand-basket, for fear of the dog; and then we will say our prayers, and go to sleep, please God. I am sure we all want it.”

Oliver chose to examine first how high the water stood in the lower rooms. He lighted a piece of wood, and found that only two steps of the lower flight of stairs remained dry. Ailwin protested so earnestly that the waters had not risen for two or three hours, that he thought they might all lie down to sleep. Ailwin and he were the only ones who could keep watch. He did not think Ailwin’s watching would be worth much; he was so tired that he did not think he could keep awake; and he felt that he should be much more fit for all the business that lay before him for the next day, if he could get a good rest now. So he kissed little George, as he lay down beside him, and was soon as sound asleep as all his companions.

Chapter Five.Sunrise over the Levels.All the party slept for some hours, as quietly and unconsciously as little George himself. If the children were so weary that the dreadful uncertainty about their father’s fate could not keep them awake, it is probable that a knowledge of their own danger might have failed to disturb them. But they had little more idea than George himself of the extent of the peril they were in. They did not know that the Levels were surrounded by hills on every side but towards the sea; or, if they knew, they did not consider this, because the hills were a great way off. But, whether they were far or near, this circle of hills was the cause of the waters rising to a great height in the Levels, when once the defences that had kept out the sea and the rivers were broken down. As the hills prevented the overflowing waters from running off on three sides, it was clear that the waters must rise to the level of the sea and the rivers from which they flowed in. They had not reached this height when the children lay down to rest, though Ailwin was so sure that the worst was over; and the danger increased as they slept; slept too soundly even to dream of accidents.The first disturbance was from the child. Oliver became aware, through his sleep, that little George was moving about and laughing. Oliver murmured, “Be quiet, George. Lie still, dear,” and the child was quiet for a minute. Presently, however, he moved again, and something like a dabbling in water was heard, while, at the same moment, Oliver found his feet cold. He roused himself with a start, felt that his bed was wet, and turning out, was up to the ankles in water. By the light of the embers, he saw that the floor was a pond, with some shoes floating on it. His call woke Ailwin and Mildred at once. Roger did not stir, though there was a good deal of bustle and noise.Mildred’s bed was so high above the floor as to be still quite dry. Oliver told her to stay there till he should settle what was to be done next: and he took up the child to put him with Mildred, asking her to strip off his drenched clothes, and keep him warm. All the apparel that had been taken off was luckily on the top of a chest, far above the water. Oliver handed this to his sister, bidding her dress herself, as well as the child. He then carefully put the fire together, to make as much light as possible, and then told Ailwin that they must bestir themselves, as the fire would presently be drowned out.Ailwin was quite ready to bestir herself; but she had no idea beyond mounting on chests, chairs, and drawers; unless, indeed, she thought of the beam which crossed the ceiling, to which she was seen to cast her eyes, as if envying the chicks which hung there, or the hen which still slept, with her head beneath her wing, out of present reach of the flood.Oliver disapproved of the plan of mounting on the furniture of the room. It might be all very well, he said, if there were nothing better to be done. But, by the time the water would reach the top of the chests, it would be impossible to get out by the door. He thought it would be wisest to reach the roof of the house while they could, and to carry with them all the comforts they could collect, while they might be removed in a dry condition. Ailwin agreed, and was going to throw open the door, when Oliver stopped her hand.“Why, Oliver,” she cried, “you won’t let one do anything; and you say, all the time, that there is not a minute to be lost.”Oliver showed her that water was streaming in at the sides of the door, a good way higher up than it stood on the floor. He said that the door was a defence at present,—that the water was higher on the stairs than in the room, and that there would be a great rush as soon as the door should be opened. He wished, therefore, that the bedding, and the clothes from the drawers, and all else that they could remove to the top of the house, should be bundled up, and placed on the highest chest of drawers, before the water should be let in. They must borrow the line from the clothes’ basket, to tie round George’s waist, that they might not lose him in the confusion. One other thing must be done: they must rouse Roger, or he might be drowned.Ailwin was anxious that this last piece of duty should be omitted:—not that she exactly wished that Roger should be drowned,—at least, not through her means; but she, ignorant as she was,—had a superstitious feeling that Roger and his family had caused this flood, and that he could save himself well enough, though he appeared to be sunk in a drunken sleep. She indulged Oliver, however, so far as to help him to seize the lad, neck and heels, and lay him, dripping as he was, upon the table.Before the bedding and clothes were all tied up, the door of the room shook so as to threaten to burst in, from the latch giving way. It struck everybody that the person who should open it would run the risk of being suffocated, or terribly knocked about; and yet, it was hardly wise to wait for its bursting. Oliver, therefore, tied a string to the knob of the bolt, then slipped the bolt, to keep the door fastened while he lifted and tied up the latch. The door shook more and more; so, having set the window wide open, he made haste to scramble up to where Mildred was, wound the cord which was about George’s waist round his own arm, bade Mildred hold the child fast, and gave notice that he was going to open the door. It was a strange party, as the boy could not help noting at the moment,—the maid standing on the bed, hugging the bed-post, and staring with frightened eyes; Roger snoring on the table, just under the sleeping hen on the beam; and the three children perched on the top of a high chest of drawers. George took it all for play,—the new sash he had on and the bolting the door, and the climbing and scrambling. He laughed and kicked, so that his sister could scarcely hold him. “Now for it!” cried Oliver.“Oh, Oliver, stop a minute!” cried Ailwin. “Don’t be in such a hurry to drown us all, Oliver. Stop a moment, Oliver.”Oliver knew, however, that the way to drown them all was to stop. At the first pull the bolt gave way, the door burst open, as if it would break from its hinges, and a great body of water dashed in. The first thing the wave did was to wash Roger off the table; the next, to put out the fire with a fizz,—so that there was no other light but the dawn, now advancing. The waters next dashed up against the wall opposite the door; and then by the rebound, with less force, against the drawers on which the children sat. It then leaped out of the window, leaving a troubled surface at about half the height of the room. Above the noise, Ailwin was heard lamenting, the chicks cluttering, the hen fluttering, and George laughing and clapping his hands.“You have George safe?” said Oliver. “Very well! I believe we can all get out. There is Roger’s head above water; and I don’t think it is more than up to my neck; though everybody laughs at me for being a short boy.”He stepped down upon a chair, and then cautiously into the water. It was very nearly up to his chin.“That will do,” said he, cheerfully. “Now, Ailwin, you are the tallest;—please carry George out on the roof of the house, and stay there with him till I come.”Ailwin made many lamentations at having to step down into the water; but she took good care of the child, carrying him quite high and dry. Oliver followed, to see that he was tied securely to the balustrade on the roof. While he was doing this, Ailwin brought Mildred in the same way. Mildred wanted to be of use below; but her brother told her the best thing she could do was to watch and amuse George, and to stand ready to receive the things saved from the chambers,—she not being tall enough to do any service in four feet of water.It was a strange forlorn feeling to Mildred,—the being left on the house-top in the cold grey morning, at an hour when she had always hitherto been asleep in bed. The world itself, as she looked round her, seemed unlike the one she had hitherto lived in. The stars were in the sky; but they were dim,—fading before the light of morning. There were no fields, no gardens, no roads to be seen;—only grey water, far away on every side. She could see nothing beyond this grey water, except towards the east, where a line of low hills stood between her and the brightening sky. Poor Mildred felt dizzy, with so much moving water before her eyes, and in her ears the sound of the current below. The house shook and trembled, too, under the force of the flood: so that she was glad to fix her sight on the steady line of the distant hills. She spoke to George occasionally, to keep him quiet; and she was ready to receive every article that was handed up the stairs from below: but, in all the intervals, she fixed her eyes on the distant hills. She thought how easy it would be to reach that ridge, if she were a bird; and how hard it would be to pine away on this house-top, or to sink to death in these waters, for want of the wings which inferior creatures had. Then she thought of superior creatures that had wings too: and she longed to be an angel. She longed to be out of all this trouble and fear; and considered that it would be worth while to be drowned, to be as free as a bird or an angel. She resolved to remember this, and not to be frightened, if the water should rise and rise, till it should sweep her quite away. She thought that this might have befallen her mother yesterday. No boat had been seen on the waters in the direction of Gainsborough; no sign had reached the family that any one was thinking of them at a distance, and trying to save them: and Oliver and Mildred had agreed that it was likely that Mrs Linacre had heard some report of the pulling up of the sluices, and might have been on her way home when the flood overtook and drowned her. If so, she might be now an angel. If an angel, Mildred was sure her first thought would be, as it had ever been, of her home and her children; and the little girl looked up to see whether there was anything like the shadow of wings between her and the dim stars. She saw nothing; but still, in some kind of hope, she softly breathed the words, “O, mother! Mother!”“Mother! Mother!” shouted little George, as he overheard her. Oliver leaped up the stairs, and inquired whether there was a boat,—whether mother was coming.“No, Oliver, no. I was only thinking about mother; and so, I suppose, was George. I am afraid you are disappointed;—I am sorry.”Oliver bit his lip to prevent crying, and could not speak directly; but seemed to be gazing carefully all around the waste. He said, at last, that he had many times thought that his mother might come in a boat: and he thought she might still, unless...“Unless she should be an angel now,” whispered Mildred,—“unless she died yesterday; and then she might be with us now, at this very moment, though we cannot see her;—might not she?”“Yes, I believe so, dear. And, for one thing, I almost wish she may not come in a boat. Who should tell her that father was carried away into all those waters, without having spoken one word to us?”“If they are both dead, do you not think they are together now?” asked Mildred.“Certainly. Pastor Dendel says that all who love one another well enough will live together, where they will never die any more.”“And I am sure they did,” said Mildred.“If they see us now,” said Oliver, “it must make a great difference to them whether we are frightened and miserable, or whether we behave as we ought to do. Let us try not to be frightened, for their sakes, dear.”“And if they are not with us all the while, God is,” whispered Mildred.“O, yes; but God knows ... God will not expect...”“Surely He will feel in some way as they do about us,” said Mildred, remembering and repeating the verse Pastor Dendel had taught her. “‘Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.’”“‘For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.’” So Oliver continued the psalm.“There comes the sun!” exclaimed Mildred, happy to greet some one familiar object amidst this strange scene.The scene hardly appeared the same when the sun, after first peeping above the hills like a golden star, flamed up to its full size, and cast a broad glittering light over the wide waters, and into the very eyes of the children. They felt the warmth too, immediately; and it was very cheering. The eastern hills now almost disappeared in the sun’s blaze; and those to the west shone very clearly; and the southern ridge near Gainsborough, looked really but a little way off. The children knew, however, that there were three full miles between them and any land, except their Red-hill, and a few hillocks which peeped above the flood in the Levels: and there was no sign of a boat, far or near. Oliver checked a sigh, when he had convinced himself of this; and began to look what had become of the people they knew in the Levels.Neighbour Gool’s dwelling stood low; and nothing was now to be seen of it but a dark speck, which might be the top of a chimney. It was possible that the whole family might have escaped; for Gool and his wife were to be at Haxey yesterday; and they might there hear of the mischief intended or done to the sluices, in time to save the rest of the household. Some of the roofs of the hamlet of Sandtoft stood above the waters; and the whole upper part of the chapel used by the foreigners; and many might easily have found a refuge there. Further off, a conspicuous object was the elegant crocketed spire of one of the beautiful Lincolnshire churches, standing high, as if inviting those who were dismayed to come and save themselves in the air from the dangers of the waters. Oliver wondered whether any sufferers were now watching the sunrise from the long ridge of the church-roof, or from the windows of the spire.One of the most curious sights was the fleets of haystacks that were sailing along in the courses of the currents. As the smaller stacks were sometimes shot forward rapidly, and whirled round by an eddy, while a large stately stack followed forwards, performing the same turns of the voyage, Mildred compared them to a duck and her ducklings in the pond, and Oliver to a great ship voyaging with a fleet of small craft. They saw sights far more sorrowful than this. They grieved over the fine large trees—some in full leaf—that they saw tumbling about in the torrents which cut through the stiller waters; but it was yet worse to see dead cows, horses, pigs, and sheep carried past—some directly through the garden, or over the spot where the mill had stood. There were also thatched roofs carried away entire; and many a chest, chair, and cow-rack—showing the destruction that had gone on during the night. While the distant scene was all bright and lovely in the sunrise, these nearer objects, thickly strewn in the muddy waters, were ugly and dismal; and Oliver saw that it did him and his sister no good to watch them. He started, and said they must not be idle any longer.Just then Ailwin called from the stairs,—“I say, Oliver, the cow is alive. I heard her low, I’m certain.”“I am afraid it was only George,” said Mildred. “He was lowing like the cow, a minute ago.”“That might be because he heard the real cow,” cried Oliver, with new hope. “I had rather save the cow than anything. I will see if I cannot get into one of the upper rooms that looks towards the yard. We might have a bridge-rope from more windows than one. Where is Roger? What is he fit for? Is he awake?”“Awake! Yes, indeed,” whispered Ailwin, coming close up to the children. “There is more mischief about that boy than you think for. He is now on the stairs, with more mice, and rats, and spiders, and creeping things about him than I ever saw before in all my days. We are like to be devoured as we stand on our feet; to say nothing of what is to become of us if we lie down.”Mildred looked at her brother in great terror.“We must get rid of them, if they really do us hurt,” said Oliver, decidedly, though with an anxious look. “We must drown them, if they are mischievous. We can do that, you know—at least with the larger things. They cannot get away from us.”“Drown away!” said Ailwin, mysteriously. “Drown away! The more you drown the more will come up. Why, did you never hear of the plagues of Egypt?”“Yes, to be sure. What then?”“I take this to be a plague of Egypt that that boy has brought upon us. It is his doing; and you will see that, if you will just look down from where I stand, and watch him making friends with them all.”Mildred’s eyes were on her brother’s face as he stood where Ailwin desired him, watching Roger. After looking very thoughtful for some moments, he turned and exclaimed,—“There is not one word of sense in it all, Mildred. There is a wonderful number of live things there, to be sure; and here, too, all over the roof—if you look. But Roger is not making friends with them. He is teasing them—hurting all he can get hold of. I think the creatures have come up here because the water has driven them out of their holes; and that there would have been quite as many if Roger had been drowned in the carr. They have nothing to do with Roger, or the plagues of Egypt, Mildred. Don’t believe a word of it.”“Then I wish Ailwin would not say such things,” replied Mildred.Ailwin persisted that time would show what Roger was—to which they all agreed. Oliver observed that meanwhile Ailwin, who was the oldest person among them, should not try to frighten a little girl, who was the youngest of all, except George. Ailwin said she should keep her own thoughts; though, to be sure, she need not always say what they were to everybody.“About this cow,” thought Oliver, aloud. “We must plan some way to feed her.”“Take care!” exclaimed Mildred, as he began to descend the stairs. But the words were scarcely out of her mouth when her brother called to her that the water had sunk. She ran to see, and saw, with her own eyes, that the water did not quite come up to the wet mark it had left on the wall of the stairs. Ailwin thought but little of it—it was such a trifle; and Oliver allowed that it might be a mere accident, arising from the flood having found some new vent about the house; but still, the water had sunk; and that was a sight full of hope.“Have you heard the cow low, Roger?” asked Oliver.“Yes, to be sure. She may well low; for she must be hungry enough.”“And wet and cold enough, too, poor thing! I am going to see whether, I can find out exactly where she is, and whether we cannot do something for her.”Ailwin called down-stairs to Oliver, to say that there was a washtub floating about in the room they had slept in. If he could find it, he might row himself about in that, in the chambers, instead of always wading in the water, catching his death of cold.Oliver took the hint, and presently appeared in the tub, rowing himself with a slip of the wood he had brought over from the Red-hill. Roger stared at him as he rowed himself out of one chamber, and opened the door of another, entering it in fine style. Roger presently followed to see what was doing, and perhaps to try how he liked a voyage in a tub in a large chamber.“I see her,” cried Oliver, from the window. “I see poor cow’s head, and the ridge of her back above water.”Roger came splashing to the window to look, and jumped into the tub, making it sink a good deal; but it held both the boys very well. Roger thought the cow very stupid that she did not get upon the great dunghill behind her, which would keep her whole body out of the water. Oliver thought that, as the dunghill was behind her, she could not see it. He wished he could go, and put her in mind of it. He thought he would try to cross in the tub, if he could so connect it with the window as that it might be drawn back, in case of his being unable to pass the little current that there was between the house and the ruins of the yard-buildings—of which little remained.“I’ll go, too,” said Roger.“Either you will go, or I,” said Oliver. “One must stay to manage the rope, in case of the tub upsetting. You had better let me go, Roger, because poor cow knows me.”Roger, however, chose to go. Oliver asked him whether he could milk a cow; because some milk must be got for George, if possible. He said, very gravely, that his poor little brother would die, he thought, if they could not get milk for him.Roger laughed at the doubt whether he could milk cows. He did it every day of his life, when fishing and fowling, with his uncle, in the carr. Oliver now guessed how it was that the milk of their good cow had sometimes unaccountably run short. Ailwin had observed that this never happened but when the Redfurns were in the neighbourhood; and she had always insisted upon it that they had bewitched the cow. Oliver knew that she would say so now. He said so much, and said it so seriously, about the necessity of milk for little George, that he thought not even a Redfurn could have the heart to drink up all the milk. He gave Roger a brown pitcher for the milk, and helped, very cleverly, to fasten the cord to the tub. They passed the cord through the back of a heavy old-fashioned chair that stood in the room, lest any sudden pull should throw Oliver out of the window; he then established himself on the window-sill, above the water, to manage his line, and watch what Roger would do.Roger pulled very skilfully;—much more so, from his strength and from practice, than Oliver could have done. He avoided logs of wood, trees, and other heavy things that floated past; and this was nearly all he did till the line had quite run out, so that he could not be carried any further down. Then he began diligently working his way up towards the cow. He had got half-way to his object, when he paused a moment, and then changed his course—to Oliver’s surprise; for the thing which appeared to have attracted his attention was a small copper boiler. Plenty of such things swept past before, and nobody had thought of wanting them. It was plain, however, that Roger had a fancy for this particular copper boiler; for he carefully waylaid it, and arrested it with his paddle. Oliver then saw that some live animal leaped from the boiler into the tub. He saw Roger seize the boiler, and take it into the tub; catch up the animal, whatever it might be, and nurse it in his arms; and then take something out of his pocket, and stoop down. Oliver was pretty sure he was killing something with his knife.Whatever Roger was doing he had soon done. By this time he had again been carried down as far as the line would allow; and the additional weight he had now on board his tub made it harder work for him to paddle up again. He did it, however, and brought his odd little boat into still water, between the dunghill and the cow. After looking about him for a while, he threw out the boiler and the pitcher upon the dunghill, seized a pitchfork which was stuck upright in it, and, his craft being thus lightened, made for the ruins of the cart shed and stable.Of these buildings there remained only wrecks of the walls, and a few beams and rafters standing up in the air, or lying across each other, without any thatch to cover them. Something must be left inside, however; for Roger was busy with his pitchfork. This something must be valuable, too; for Roger, after carefully feeling the depth, jumped out of the tub, and went on filling it, while he stood in the water. Oliver thought this very daring, till, glancing at the cow, he was sure he saw more of her neck and back; and examining the wall of the house, he perceived that the flood had sunk some inches since Roger began to cross.When the tub was heaped up with what looked like wet straw, Roger pushed it before him towards the cow, carefully feeling his way, but never sinking so much as to have the water above his shoulders.“Capital! Now that is clever!” said Oliver, aloud, as he sat at the window, and saw what Roger was about. “He is going to lift her up out of the water. How she struggles to help herself! She knows there is somebody caring for her; and she will do what she can for herself.”This was true. Roger thrust the straw he had brought under the cow, with his pitchfork. He had to bring three loads before she could raise her whole body; but then she stood, poor thing! With only her trembling legs in the water. Roger turned her head so that she saw the dunghill just behind her, and with some encouragement, made one more vigorous scramble to reach it. She succeeded; and Roger whipped up the pitcher, and was certainly trying to milk her. She could not, however, be prevented from lying down. Oliver was more angry than he had almost ever been in his life, when he saw Roger kick her repeatedly, in different parts of her body, pull her by the tail, and haul up her head with a rope he had found in the stable. The poor cow never attempted to rise; and it was clear that she wanted comfort, and not ill-usage. Oliver determined that, when Roger came back, he would not speak a word to him.Roger set about returning presently, when he found that nothing could be got from the cow. He took his boiler on board, and pulled himself in by the line, without troubling himself to paddle.When he came in at the window, he threw down the pitcher, swearing at himself for the trouble he had taken about a good-for-nothing beast that had been standing starving in the water till she had not a drop of milk to give. He looked at Oliver, as if rather surprised that he did not speak; but Oliver took no notice of him.It was a hare that Roger had in his boiler,—a hare that had, no doubt, leaped into the boiler when pressed by a still more urgent danger than sailing down the stream in such a boat. Roger had cut her throat with his pocket-knife; and there she lay in her own blood.“Don’t you touch that,” said Roger, as he landed his booty upon the window-sill. “If you lay a finger on that, it will be the worse for you. They are mine—both puss and the boiler.”Still Oliver did not speak. He wondered what Roger meant to do with these things, if nobody else was to touch them.Roger soon made it clear what his intentions were. He whistled to his dog, which scampered down-stairs to him from the top of the house; put dog, puss, and boiler into the clothes’ basket, and pulled himself over with them to the Red-hill, taking care to carry the tinder-box with him. There he made a fire, skinned and cooked his hare, and, with his dog, made a feast of it, under a tree.Nobody grudged him his feast; though the children were sorry to find that any one could be so selfish. Ailwin was glad to be rid of him, on any terms; and, as soon as Oliver was sure that he was occupied for some time to come, so that he would not be returning to make mischief, he resolved to go over to the cow, and give her something better than kicks;—food, if, as he thought, he could procure some. Saying nothing to any one, he tied the tub-line to a bed-post, as being more trustworthy still than the heavy chair, and carried with him the great knife that the meat had been cut with the evening before. He made for the stable first, and joined the rope he knew to be there to his line, so as to make it twice the length it was before. He could now reach the field behind the stable, where the corn, just turning from green to yellow, had been standing high at this hour yesterday. He had to paddle very carefully here, lest his tub should be knocked to pieces against the stone wall. But the wall, though not altogether thrown down, had so many breaches made in it, that he found himself in the field, without exactly knowing whether he had come through the gate-posts or through the wall. He lost no time in digging with his paddle; and, as he had hoped, he turned up ears of corn from under the water, which he could catch hold of, a handful at a time, and cut off with his knife. It was very tiresome, slow work; and sometimes he was near losing his paddle, and sometimes his knife. He persevered, however: now resting for a minute or two, and then eating a few of the ears, and thinking that only very hungry people could swallow them, soaked as they were with bad water. He ate more than he would have done, remembering that the more he took now, the less he should want of the portion he meant to carry to the house, when he should have fed the cow. He hoped they should obtain some better food; but, if no flour was to be had, and no other vegetable than this, it would be better than none.When he reached the cow, she devoured the heads of corn ravenously. She could not have appeared better satisfied with the sweetest spring grass. It was a pleasure to see her eyes as she lay, receiving her food from Oliver’s hand. He emptied out all he had brought beside her, and patted her, saying he hoped she would give George some milk in the afternoon, in return for what had been done for her now.Oliver felt so tired and weak when he got home with his tub half full of soaked corn ears, that he felt as if he could not do anything more. He was very near crying when he found that there was not a morsel to eat; that the very water was too bad to drink; and that there was no fire, from Roger having carried off the tinder-box. But George was crying with hunger; and that made Oliver ashamed to do the same, and put him upon thinking what was to be done next.Ailwin was the only person who, being as strong as Roger could have got anything from him by force; and there was no use in asking Ailwin to cross the bridge-rope, or to do anything which would bring her nearer to the boy she feared so much. Besides that, Roger had carried over the clothes’ basket without leaving any line to pull it back by. Oliver felt that he (if he were only a little less hungry and tired) could make the trip in a sack, or a tub, or even a kettle; but a tall woman like Ailwin could cross in nothing smaller than the missing clothes’ basket. It was clear that Oliver alone could go; and that he must go for the tinder-box before any comfort was to be had.He made up his mind to this, therefore; and having, with Ailwin’s help, slung the useful tub upon the bridge-rope, so that he might start the first moment that Roger should be out of sight or asleep, he rested himself in the window, watching what passed on the Red-hill. He observed that Roger seemed quite secure that no one could follow him, as he had carried off the basket. There he lay, near the fire, eating the meat he had broiled, and playing with his dog. It seemed to the hungry watchers as if he meant to lie there all day. After awhile, however, he rose, and sauntered towards the trees, among which he disappeared, as if going to the other side of the hill, to play, or to set his dog upon game.Oliver was off, sliding along the bridge-rope in his tub. He did not forget to carry the line with which to bring back the basket. It seemed to him that Roger intended to live by himself on the Red-hill; and to this none of the party had any objection. He had swum over to the house once, when the stream was higher and more rapid than now; and he could come again, if he found himself really in want of anything; so that nobody need be anxious for him. Meantime, no one at the house desired his company. Oliver therefore took with him a blanket and a rug, and a knife and fork for his accommodation.He alighted under the beech without difficulty, and laid down the articles he brought under the tree, where Roger would be sure to see them. He took the flint and the tinder from the tinder-box, and pocketed them, leaving the steel and the box for Roger’s use, as there were knives at home, and Roger might perhaps find a flint on the hill. There were plenty in the quarry. Oliver knew he must be quick; but he could not help looking round for something to eat,—some one of the many animals and birds that he knew to be on the hill, and heard moving about him on every side. But he had no means of catching any. The bones of the hare were lying about, picked quite clean by the dog; but not a morsel of meat was left in sight.Something very precious, however, caught Oliver’s eye;—a great heap of pebbly gravel thrown up by the flood. The water in the Levels was usually so bad that the settlers had to filter it; and Oliver knew that no water was purer than that which had been filtered through gravel. He believed now that poor George could have a good drink of water, at least; and he scooped up with his hands enough gravel to half fill the tub. It took a long time to heap up as much as he could carry upon the rug; and then it was hard work to empty it into the tub; and he fancied every moment that he heard Roger coming. It was a pity he did not know that Roger had fallen fast asleep in the sun, on the other side of the hill; and that his dog lay winking beside him, not thinking of stirring.One thing more must be had;—chips for fuel. When Oliver had got enough of these, and of sticks too, he found courage and strength to stay a few minutes more, to make up such a fire for Roger as would probably last till after he should have discovered the loss of the flint, and so prevent his being without fire till he could find another flint. In order to give him a broad hint, Oliver spread out the blanket on the ground, and set the tinder-box in the middle of it, where it would be sure to invite attention. He then climbed into the tub, and was glad to be off, drawing the basket with the fire-wood after him.“Here, Ailwin,” said he, faintly, as he reached the window, “take the flint and the tinder, and the wood in the basket, and make a fire. I have brought you nothing to eat.”“No need!” said Ailwin, with an uncommonly merry countenance.“You must broil the green corn, unless we can manage to get a fowl from across the yard. But I really cannot go any more errands till I am rested,” said Oliver, dismally.“No need, Oliver dear!” said Ailwin again.“What do you think we have found to eat?” cried Mildred, from the stairs.—“What is the matter with him, Ailwin? Why does not he speak?”“He is so tired, he does not know what to do,” said Ailwin. “No, don’t get down into the water again, dear. I’ll carry you. Put your arm round my neck, and I’ll carry you.”And the good-natured woman carried him up to the roof, and laid him down on a bundle of bedding there, promising to bring him breakfast presently. She threw an apron over his head, to cover it from the hot sun, and bade him lie still, and not think of anything till she came.“Only one thing,” said Oliver. “Take particular care of the gravel in the tub.”“Gravel!” exclaimed Ailwin. “The fowls eat gravel; but I don’t see that we can. However, you shall have your way, Oliver.”The tired boy was asleep in a moment. He knew nothing more till he felt vexed at somebody’s trying to wake him. It was Mildred. He heard her say,—“How very sound asleep he is! I can’t make him stir. Here, Oliver,—just eat this, and then you can go to sleep again directly.”He tried to rouse himself, and sat up; but his eyes were so dim, and the light so dazzling, that he could not see, at first, what Mildred had in her hands. It was one of her mother’s best china plates,—one of the set that was kept in a closet up-stairs; and upon it was a nice brown toasted fish, steaming hot.“Is that for me?” asked Oliver, rubbing his eyes.“Yes, indeed, for who but you?” said Ailwin, whose smiling face popped up from the stairs. “Who deserves it, if you do not, I should like to know? It is not so good as I could have wished, though, Oliver. I could not broil it, for want of butter and everything; and we have no salt, you know. But, come! Eat it, such as it is. Come, begin!”“But have you all got some too?” asked the hungry boy, as he eyed the fish.“Oh, yes,—George and all,” said Mildred. “We ate ours first, because you were so sound asleep, we did not like to wake you.”“How long have I been asleep?” asked Oliver, beginning heartily upon his fish. “How could you get this nice fish? How busy you must have been all this time that I have been asleep!”“All this time!” exclaimed Mildred. “Why, you have been asleep only half an hour; hardly so much. We have only just lighted the fire, and cooked the fish, and fed Geordie, and put him to sleep, and got our own breakfast;—and we were not long about that,—we were so very hungry! That is all we have done since you went to sleep.”“It seems a great deal for half an hour,” said Oliver. “How good this fish is! Where did you get it?”“I found it on the stairs. Ah! I thought you would not believe it; but we shall find more, I dare say, as the water sinks; and then you will believe what you see.”“On the stairs! How did it get there?”“The same way that the water got there, I suppose, and the poor little drowned pig that lay close by the same place. There was a whole heap of fish washed up at the turn of the stairs; enough for us all to-day. Ailwin said we must eat them first, because the pig will keep. Such a nice little clean sucking-pig!”“That puts me in mind of the poor sow,” said Oliver. “I forgot her when we were busy about the cow. I am afraid she is drowned or starved before this; but we must see about it.”“Not now,” said Mildred. “Do you go to sleep again now. There is not such a hurry as there was, the waters are going down so fast.”“Are they, indeed?—Oh, I do not want to sleep any more. I am quite wide awake now. Are you sure the flood is going down?”“Only look! Look at that steep red bank on the Red-hill, where it was all a green slope yesterday, and covered with water this morning. Look at the little speck of a hillock, where neighbour Gool’s house was. We could not see that this morning, I am sure. And if you will come down, you will find that there is scarcely any water in the upper rooms now. Geordie might play at paddling there, as he is so fond of doing in his tub. Ailwin thinks we might sleep there to-night, if we could only get everything dried.”“We might get many things dried before night, in such a sun as this. How very hot it is!”Oliver ran down, and convinced himself that the flood was abating fast. It must have swelled up higher within the house than outside; for it had sunk three feet in the upper rooms, and two on the outer walls of the house. Now that the worst of the danger seemed to be past, the children worked with fresh spirit, making all possible use of the sunshine for drying their bedding and clothes, in hopes of sleeping in a chamber this night, instead of on the house-top, which they had feared would be necessary. Nothing could have made them believe, if they had been told at sunrise, how cheerfully they would sit down, in the afternoon, to rest and talk, and hope that they might, after all, meet their father and mother again soon, alive and well.

All the party slept for some hours, as quietly and unconsciously as little George himself. If the children were so weary that the dreadful uncertainty about their father’s fate could not keep them awake, it is probable that a knowledge of their own danger might have failed to disturb them. But they had little more idea than George himself of the extent of the peril they were in. They did not know that the Levels were surrounded by hills on every side but towards the sea; or, if they knew, they did not consider this, because the hills were a great way off. But, whether they were far or near, this circle of hills was the cause of the waters rising to a great height in the Levels, when once the defences that had kept out the sea and the rivers were broken down. As the hills prevented the overflowing waters from running off on three sides, it was clear that the waters must rise to the level of the sea and the rivers from which they flowed in. They had not reached this height when the children lay down to rest, though Ailwin was so sure that the worst was over; and the danger increased as they slept; slept too soundly even to dream of accidents.

The first disturbance was from the child. Oliver became aware, through his sleep, that little George was moving about and laughing. Oliver murmured, “Be quiet, George. Lie still, dear,” and the child was quiet for a minute. Presently, however, he moved again, and something like a dabbling in water was heard, while, at the same moment, Oliver found his feet cold. He roused himself with a start, felt that his bed was wet, and turning out, was up to the ankles in water. By the light of the embers, he saw that the floor was a pond, with some shoes floating on it. His call woke Ailwin and Mildred at once. Roger did not stir, though there was a good deal of bustle and noise.

Mildred’s bed was so high above the floor as to be still quite dry. Oliver told her to stay there till he should settle what was to be done next: and he took up the child to put him with Mildred, asking her to strip off his drenched clothes, and keep him warm. All the apparel that had been taken off was luckily on the top of a chest, far above the water. Oliver handed this to his sister, bidding her dress herself, as well as the child. He then carefully put the fire together, to make as much light as possible, and then told Ailwin that they must bestir themselves, as the fire would presently be drowned out.

Ailwin was quite ready to bestir herself; but she had no idea beyond mounting on chests, chairs, and drawers; unless, indeed, she thought of the beam which crossed the ceiling, to which she was seen to cast her eyes, as if envying the chicks which hung there, or the hen which still slept, with her head beneath her wing, out of present reach of the flood.

Oliver disapproved of the plan of mounting on the furniture of the room. It might be all very well, he said, if there were nothing better to be done. But, by the time the water would reach the top of the chests, it would be impossible to get out by the door. He thought it would be wisest to reach the roof of the house while they could, and to carry with them all the comforts they could collect, while they might be removed in a dry condition. Ailwin agreed, and was going to throw open the door, when Oliver stopped her hand.

“Why, Oliver,” she cried, “you won’t let one do anything; and you say, all the time, that there is not a minute to be lost.”

Oliver showed her that water was streaming in at the sides of the door, a good way higher up than it stood on the floor. He said that the door was a defence at present,—that the water was higher on the stairs than in the room, and that there would be a great rush as soon as the door should be opened. He wished, therefore, that the bedding, and the clothes from the drawers, and all else that they could remove to the top of the house, should be bundled up, and placed on the highest chest of drawers, before the water should be let in. They must borrow the line from the clothes’ basket, to tie round George’s waist, that they might not lose him in the confusion. One other thing must be done: they must rouse Roger, or he might be drowned.

Ailwin was anxious that this last piece of duty should be omitted:—not that she exactly wished that Roger should be drowned,—at least, not through her means; but she, ignorant as she was,—had a superstitious feeling that Roger and his family had caused this flood, and that he could save himself well enough, though he appeared to be sunk in a drunken sleep. She indulged Oliver, however, so far as to help him to seize the lad, neck and heels, and lay him, dripping as he was, upon the table.

Before the bedding and clothes were all tied up, the door of the room shook so as to threaten to burst in, from the latch giving way. It struck everybody that the person who should open it would run the risk of being suffocated, or terribly knocked about; and yet, it was hardly wise to wait for its bursting. Oliver, therefore, tied a string to the knob of the bolt, then slipped the bolt, to keep the door fastened while he lifted and tied up the latch. The door shook more and more; so, having set the window wide open, he made haste to scramble up to where Mildred was, wound the cord which was about George’s waist round his own arm, bade Mildred hold the child fast, and gave notice that he was going to open the door. It was a strange party, as the boy could not help noting at the moment,—the maid standing on the bed, hugging the bed-post, and staring with frightened eyes; Roger snoring on the table, just under the sleeping hen on the beam; and the three children perched on the top of a high chest of drawers. George took it all for play,—the new sash he had on and the bolting the door, and the climbing and scrambling. He laughed and kicked, so that his sister could scarcely hold him. “Now for it!” cried Oliver.

“Oh, Oliver, stop a minute!” cried Ailwin. “Don’t be in such a hurry to drown us all, Oliver. Stop a moment, Oliver.”

Oliver knew, however, that the way to drown them all was to stop. At the first pull the bolt gave way, the door burst open, as if it would break from its hinges, and a great body of water dashed in. The first thing the wave did was to wash Roger off the table; the next, to put out the fire with a fizz,—so that there was no other light but the dawn, now advancing. The waters next dashed up against the wall opposite the door; and then by the rebound, with less force, against the drawers on which the children sat. It then leaped out of the window, leaving a troubled surface at about half the height of the room. Above the noise, Ailwin was heard lamenting, the chicks cluttering, the hen fluttering, and George laughing and clapping his hands.

“You have George safe?” said Oliver. “Very well! I believe we can all get out. There is Roger’s head above water; and I don’t think it is more than up to my neck; though everybody laughs at me for being a short boy.”

He stepped down upon a chair, and then cautiously into the water. It was very nearly up to his chin.

“That will do,” said he, cheerfully. “Now, Ailwin, you are the tallest;—please carry George out on the roof of the house, and stay there with him till I come.”

Ailwin made many lamentations at having to step down into the water; but she took good care of the child, carrying him quite high and dry. Oliver followed, to see that he was tied securely to the balustrade on the roof. While he was doing this, Ailwin brought Mildred in the same way. Mildred wanted to be of use below; but her brother told her the best thing she could do was to watch and amuse George, and to stand ready to receive the things saved from the chambers,—she not being tall enough to do any service in four feet of water.

It was a strange forlorn feeling to Mildred,—the being left on the house-top in the cold grey morning, at an hour when she had always hitherto been asleep in bed. The world itself, as she looked round her, seemed unlike the one she had hitherto lived in. The stars were in the sky; but they were dim,—fading before the light of morning. There were no fields, no gardens, no roads to be seen;—only grey water, far away on every side. She could see nothing beyond this grey water, except towards the east, where a line of low hills stood between her and the brightening sky. Poor Mildred felt dizzy, with so much moving water before her eyes, and in her ears the sound of the current below. The house shook and trembled, too, under the force of the flood: so that she was glad to fix her sight on the steady line of the distant hills. She spoke to George occasionally, to keep him quiet; and she was ready to receive every article that was handed up the stairs from below: but, in all the intervals, she fixed her eyes on the distant hills. She thought how easy it would be to reach that ridge, if she were a bird; and how hard it would be to pine away on this house-top, or to sink to death in these waters, for want of the wings which inferior creatures had. Then she thought of superior creatures that had wings too: and she longed to be an angel. She longed to be out of all this trouble and fear; and considered that it would be worth while to be drowned, to be as free as a bird or an angel. She resolved to remember this, and not to be frightened, if the water should rise and rise, till it should sweep her quite away. She thought that this might have befallen her mother yesterday. No boat had been seen on the waters in the direction of Gainsborough; no sign had reached the family that any one was thinking of them at a distance, and trying to save them: and Oliver and Mildred had agreed that it was likely that Mrs Linacre had heard some report of the pulling up of the sluices, and might have been on her way home when the flood overtook and drowned her. If so, she might be now an angel. If an angel, Mildred was sure her first thought would be, as it had ever been, of her home and her children; and the little girl looked up to see whether there was anything like the shadow of wings between her and the dim stars. She saw nothing; but still, in some kind of hope, she softly breathed the words, “O, mother! Mother!”

“Mother! Mother!” shouted little George, as he overheard her. Oliver leaped up the stairs, and inquired whether there was a boat,—whether mother was coming.

“No, Oliver, no. I was only thinking about mother; and so, I suppose, was George. I am afraid you are disappointed;—I am sorry.”

Oliver bit his lip to prevent crying, and could not speak directly; but seemed to be gazing carefully all around the waste. He said, at last, that he had many times thought that his mother might come in a boat: and he thought she might still, unless...

“Unless she should be an angel now,” whispered Mildred,—“unless she died yesterday; and then she might be with us now, at this very moment, though we cannot see her;—might not she?”

“Yes, I believe so, dear. And, for one thing, I almost wish she may not come in a boat. Who should tell her that father was carried away into all those waters, without having spoken one word to us?”

“If they are both dead, do you not think they are together now?” asked Mildred.

“Certainly. Pastor Dendel says that all who love one another well enough will live together, where they will never die any more.”

“And I am sure they did,” said Mildred.

“If they see us now,” said Oliver, “it must make a great difference to them whether we are frightened and miserable, or whether we behave as we ought to do. Let us try not to be frightened, for their sakes, dear.”

“And if they are not with us all the while, God is,” whispered Mildred.

“O, yes; but God knows ... God will not expect...”

“Surely He will feel in some way as they do about us,” said Mildred, remembering and repeating the verse Pastor Dendel had taught her. “‘Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.’”

“‘For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.’” So Oliver continued the psalm.

“There comes the sun!” exclaimed Mildred, happy to greet some one familiar object amidst this strange scene.

The scene hardly appeared the same when the sun, after first peeping above the hills like a golden star, flamed up to its full size, and cast a broad glittering light over the wide waters, and into the very eyes of the children. They felt the warmth too, immediately; and it was very cheering. The eastern hills now almost disappeared in the sun’s blaze; and those to the west shone very clearly; and the southern ridge near Gainsborough, looked really but a little way off. The children knew, however, that there were three full miles between them and any land, except their Red-hill, and a few hillocks which peeped above the flood in the Levels: and there was no sign of a boat, far or near. Oliver checked a sigh, when he had convinced himself of this; and began to look what had become of the people they knew in the Levels.

Neighbour Gool’s dwelling stood low; and nothing was now to be seen of it but a dark speck, which might be the top of a chimney. It was possible that the whole family might have escaped; for Gool and his wife were to be at Haxey yesterday; and they might there hear of the mischief intended or done to the sluices, in time to save the rest of the household. Some of the roofs of the hamlet of Sandtoft stood above the waters; and the whole upper part of the chapel used by the foreigners; and many might easily have found a refuge there. Further off, a conspicuous object was the elegant crocketed spire of one of the beautiful Lincolnshire churches, standing high, as if inviting those who were dismayed to come and save themselves in the air from the dangers of the waters. Oliver wondered whether any sufferers were now watching the sunrise from the long ridge of the church-roof, or from the windows of the spire.

One of the most curious sights was the fleets of haystacks that were sailing along in the courses of the currents. As the smaller stacks were sometimes shot forward rapidly, and whirled round by an eddy, while a large stately stack followed forwards, performing the same turns of the voyage, Mildred compared them to a duck and her ducklings in the pond, and Oliver to a great ship voyaging with a fleet of small craft. They saw sights far more sorrowful than this. They grieved over the fine large trees—some in full leaf—that they saw tumbling about in the torrents which cut through the stiller waters; but it was yet worse to see dead cows, horses, pigs, and sheep carried past—some directly through the garden, or over the spot where the mill had stood. There were also thatched roofs carried away entire; and many a chest, chair, and cow-rack—showing the destruction that had gone on during the night. While the distant scene was all bright and lovely in the sunrise, these nearer objects, thickly strewn in the muddy waters, were ugly and dismal; and Oliver saw that it did him and his sister no good to watch them. He started, and said they must not be idle any longer.

Just then Ailwin called from the stairs,—

“I say, Oliver, the cow is alive. I heard her low, I’m certain.”

“I am afraid it was only George,” said Mildred. “He was lowing like the cow, a minute ago.”

“That might be because he heard the real cow,” cried Oliver, with new hope. “I had rather save the cow than anything. I will see if I cannot get into one of the upper rooms that looks towards the yard. We might have a bridge-rope from more windows than one. Where is Roger? What is he fit for? Is he awake?”

“Awake! Yes, indeed,” whispered Ailwin, coming close up to the children. “There is more mischief about that boy than you think for. He is now on the stairs, with more mice, and rats, and spiders, and creeping things about him than I ever saw before in all my days. We are like to be devoured as we stand on our feet; to say nothing of what is to become of us if we lie down.”

Mildred looked at her brother in great terror.

“We must get rid of them, if they really do us hurt,” said Oliver, decidedly, though with an anxious look. “We must drown them, if they are mischievous. We can do that, you know—at least with the larger things. They cannot get away from us.”

“Drown away!” said Ailwin, mysteriously. “Drown away! The more you drown the more will come up. Why, did you never hear of the plagues of Egypt?”

“Yes, to be sure. What then?”

“I take this to be a plague of Egypt that that boy has brought upon us. It is his doing; and you will see that, if you will just look down from where I stand, and watch him making friends with them all.”

Mildred’s eyes were on her brother’s face as he stood where Ailwin desired him, watching Roger. After looking very thoughtful for some moments, he turned and exclaimed,—

“There is not one word of sense in it all, Mildred. There is a wonderful number of live things there, to be sure; and here, too, all over the roof—if you look. But Roger is not making friends with them. He is teasing them—hurting all he can get hold of. I think the creatures have come up here because the water has driven them out of their holes; and that there would have been quite as many if Roger had been drowned in the carr. They have nothing to do with Roger, or the plagues of Egypt, Mildred. Don’t believe a word of it.”

“Then I wish Ailwin would not say such things,” replied Mildred.

Ailwin persisted that time would show what Roger was—to which they all agreed. Oliver observed that meanwhile Ailwin, who was the oldest person among them, should not try to frighten a little girl, who was the youngest of all, except George. Ailwin said she should keep her own thoughts; though, to be sure, she need not always say what they were to everybody.

“About this cow,” thought Oliver, aloud. “We must plan some way to feed her.”

“Take care!” exclaimed Mildred, as he began to descend the stairs. But the words were scarcely out of her mouth when her brother called to her that the water had sunk. She ran to see, and saw, with her own eyes, that the water did not quite come up to the wet mark it had left on the wall of the stairs. Ailwin thought but little of it—it was such a trifle; and Oliver allowed that it might be a mere accident, arising from the flood having found some new vent about the house; but still, the water had sunk; and that was a sight full of hope.

“Have you heard the cow low, Roger?” asked Oliver.

“Yes, to be sure. She may well low; for she must be hungry enough.”

“And wet and cold enough, too, poor thing! I am going to see whether, I can find out exactly where she is, and whether we cannot do something for her.”

Ailwin called down-stairs to Oliver, to say that there was a washtub floating about in the room they had slept in. If he could find it, he might row himself about in that, in the chambers, instead of always wading in the water, catching his death of cold.

Oliver took the hint, and presently appeared in the tub, rowing himself with a slip of the wood he had brought over from the Red-hill. Roger stared at him as he rowed himself out of one chamber, and opened the door of another, entering it in fine style. Roger presently followed to see what was doing, and perhaps to try how he liked a voyage in a tub in a large chamber.

“I see her,” cried Oliver, from the window. “I see poor cow’s head, and the ridge of her back above water.”

Roger came splashing to the window to look, and jumped into the tub, making it sink a good deal; but it held both the boys very well. Roger thought the cow very stupid that she did not get upon the great dunghill behind her, which would keep her whole body out of the water. Oliver thought that, as the dunghill was behind her, she could not see it. He wished he could go, and put her in mind of it. He thought he would try to cross in the tub, if he could so connect it with the window as that it might be drawn back, in case of his being unable to pass the little current that there was between the house and the ruins of the yard-buildings—of which little remained.

“I’ll go, too,” said Roger.

“Either you will go, or I,” said Oliver. “One must stay to manage the rope, in case of the tub upsetting. You had better let me go, Roger, because poor cow knows me.”

Roger, however, chose to go. Oliver asked him whether he could milk a cow; because some milk must be got for George, if possible. He said, very gravely, that his poor little brother would die, he thought, if they could not get milk for him.

Roger laughed at the doubt whether he could milk cows. He did it every day of his life, when fishing and fowling, with his uncle, in the carr. Oliver now guessed how it was that the milk of their good cow had sometimes unaccountably run short. Ailwin had observed that this never happened but when the Redfurns were in the neighbourhood; and she had always insisted upon it that they had bewitched the cow. Oliver knew that she would say so now. He said so much, and said it so seriously, about the necessity of milk for little George, that he thought not even a Redfurn could have the heart to drink up all the milk. He gave Roger a brown pitcher for the milk, and helped, very cleverly, to fasten the cord to the tub. They passed the cord through the back of a heavy old-fashioned chair that stood in the room, lest any sudden pull should throw Oliver out of the window; he then established himself on the window-sill, above the water, to manage his line, and watch what Roger would do.

Roger pulled very skilfully;—much more so, from his strength and from practice, than Oliver could have done. He avoided logs of wood, trees, and other heavy things that floated past; and this was nearly all he did till the line had quite run out, so that he could not be carried any further down. Then he began diligently working his way up towards the cow. He had got half-way to his object, when he paused a moment, and then changed his course—to Oliver’s surprise; for the thing which appeared to have attracted his attention was a small copper boiler. Plenty of such things swept past before, and nobody had thought of wanting them. It was plain, however, that Roger had a fancy for this particular copper boiler; for he carefully waylaid it, and arrested it with his paddle. Oliver then saw that some live animal leaped from the boiler into the tub. He saw Roger seize the boiler, and take it into the tub; catch up the animal, whatever it might be, and nurse it in his arms; and then take something out of his pocket, and stoop down. Oliver was pretty sure he was killing something with his knife.

Whatever Roger was doing he had soon done. By this time he had again been carried down as far as the line would allow; and the additional weight he had now on board his tub made it harder work for him to paddle up again. He did it, however, and brought his odd little boat into still water, between the dunghill and the cow. After looking about him for a while, he threw out the boiler and the pitcher upon the dunghill, seized a pitchfork which was stuck upright in it, and, his craft being thus lightened, made for the ruins of the cart shed and stable.

Of these buildings there remained only wrecks of the walls, and a few beams and rafters standing up in the air, or lying across each other, without any thatch to cover them. Something must be left inside, however; for Roger was busy with his pitchfork. This something must be valuable, too; for Roger, after carefully feeling the depth, jumped out of the tub, and went on filling it, while he stood in the water. Oliver thought this very daring, till, glancing at the cow, he was sure he saw more of her neck and back; and examining the wall of the house, he perceived that the flood had sunk some inches since Roger began to cross.

When the tub was heaped up with what looked like wet straw, Roger pushed it before him towards the cow, carefully feeling his way, but never sinking so much as to have the water above his shoulders.

“Capital! Now that is clever!” said Oliver, aloud, as he sat at the window, and saw what Roger was about. “He is going to lift her up out of the water. How she struggles to help herself! She knows there is somebody caring for her; and she will do what she can for herself.”

This was true. Roger thrust the straw he had brought under the cow, with his pitchfork. He had to bring three loads before she could raise her whole body; but then she stood, poor thing! With only her trembling legs in the water. Roger turned her head so that she saw the dunghill just behind her, and with some encouragement, made one more vigorous scramble to reach it. She succeeded; and Roger whipped up the pitcher, and was certainly trying to milk her. She could not, however, be prevented from lying down. Oliver was more angry than he had almost ever been in his life, when he saw Roger kick her repeatedly, in different parts of her body, pull her by the tail, and haul up her head with a rope he had found in the stable. The poor cow never attempted to rise; and it was clear that she wanted comfort, and not ill-usage. Oliver determined that, when Roger came back, he would not speak a word to him.

Roger set about returning presently, when he found that nothing could be got from the cow. He took his boiler on board, and pulled himself in by the line, without troubling himself to paddle.

When he came in at the window, he threw down the pitcher, swearing at himself for the trouble he had taken about a good-for-nothing beast that had been standing starving in the water till she had not a drop of milk to give. He looked at Oliver, as if rather surprised that he did not speak; but Oliver took no notice of him.

It was a hare that Roger had in his boiler,—a hare that had, no doubt, leaped into the boiler when pressed by a still more urgent danger than sailing down the stream in such a boat. Roger had cut her throat with his pocket-knife; and there she lay in her own blood.

“Don’t you touch that,” said Roger, as he landed his booty upon the window-sill. “If you lay a finger on that, it will be the worse for you. They are mine—both puss and the boiler.”

Still Oliver did not speak. He wondered what Roger meant to do with these things, if nobody else was to touch them.

Roger soon made it clear what his intentions were. He whistled to his dog, which scampered down-stairs to him from the top of the house; put dog, puss, and boiler into the clothes’ basket, and pulled himself over with them to the Red-hill, taking care to carry the tinder-box with him. There he made a fire, skinned and cooked his hare, and, with his dog, made a feast of it, under a tree.

Nobody grudged him his feast; though the children were sorry to find that any one could be so selfish. Ailwin was glad to be rid of him, on any terms; and, as soon as Oliver was sure that he was occupied for some time to come, so that he would not be returning to make mischief, he resolved to go over to the cow, and give her something better than kicks;—food, if, as he thought, he could procure some. Saying nothing to any one, he tied the tub-line to a bed-post, as being more trustworthy still than the heavy chair, and carried with him the great knife that the meat had been cut with the evening before. He made for the stable first, and joined the rope he knew to be there to his line, so as to make it twice the length it was before. He could now reach the field behind the stable, where the corn, just turning from green to yellow, had been standing high at this hour yesterday. He had to paddle very carefully here, lest his tub should be knocked to pieces against the stone wall. But the wall, though not altogether thrown down, had so many breaches made in it, that he found himself in the field, without exactly knowing whether he had come through the gate-posts or through the wall. He lost no time in digging with his paddle; and, as he had hoped, he turned up ears of corn from under the water, which he could catch hold of, a handful at a time, and cut off with his knife. It was very tiresome, slow work; and sometimes he was near losing his paddle, and sometimes his knife. He persevered, however: now resting for a minute or two, and then eating a few of the ears, and thinking that only very hungry people could swallow them, soaked as they were with bad water. He ate more than he would have done, remembering that the more he took now, the less he should want of the portion he meant to carry to the house, when he should have fed the cow. He hoped they should obtain some better food; but, if no flour was to be had, and no other vegetable than this, it would be better than none.

When he reached the cow, she devoured the heads of corn ravenously. She could not have appeared better satisfied with the sweetest spring grass. It was a pleasure to see her eyes as she lay, receiving her food from Oliver’s hand. He emptied out all he had brought beside her, and patted her, saying he hoped she would give George some milk in the afternoon, in return for what had been done for her now.

Oliver felt so tired and weak when he got home with his tub half full of soaked corn ears, that he felt as if he could not do anything more. He was very near crying when he found that there was not a morsel to eat; that the very water was too bad to drink; and that there was no fire, from Roger having carried off the tinder-box. But George was crying with hunger; and that made Oliver ashamed to do the same, and put him upon thinking what was to be done next.

Ailwin was the only person who, being as strong as Roger could have got anything from him by force; and there was no use in asking Ailwin to cross the bridge-rope, or to do anything which would bring her nearer to the boy she feared so much. Besides that, Roger had carried over the clothes’ basket without leaving any line to pull it back by. Oliver felt that he (if he were only a little less hungry and tired) could make the trip in a sack, or a tub, or even a kettle; but a tall woman like Ailwin could cross in nothing smaller than the missing clothes’ basket. It was clear that Oliver alone could go; and that he must go for the tinder-box before any comfort was to be had.

He made up his mind to this, therefore; and having, with Ailwin’s help, slung the useful tub upon the bridge-rope, so that he might start the first moment that Roger should be out of sight or asleep, he rested himself in the window, watching what passed on the Red-hill. He observed that Roger seemed quite secure that no one could follow him, as he had carried off the basket. There he lay, near the fire, eating the meat he had broiled, and playing with his dog. It seemed to the hungry watchers as if he meant to lie there all day. After awhile, however, he rose, and sauntered towards the trees, among which he disappeared, as if going to the other side of the hill, to play, or to set his dog upon game.

Oliver was off, sliding along the bridge-rope in his tub. He did not forget to carry the line with which to bring back the basket. It seemed to him that Roger intended to live by himself on the Red-hill; and to this none of the party had any objection. He had swum over to the house once, when the stream was higher and more rapid than now; and he could come again, if he found himself really in want of anything; so that nobody need be anxious for him. Meantime, no one at the house desired his company. Oliver therefore took with him a blanket and a rug, and a knife and fork for his accommodation.

He alighted under the beech without difficulty, and laid down the articles he brought under the tree, where Roger would be sure to see them. He took the flint and the tinder from the tinder-box, and pocketed them, leaving the steel and the box for Roger’s use, as there were knives at home, and Roger might perhaps find a flint on the hill. There were plenty in the quarry. Oliver knew he must be quick; but he could not help looking round for something to eat,—some one of the many animals and birds that he knew to be on the hill, and heard moving about him on every side. But he had no means of catching any. The bones of the hare were lying about, picked quite clean by the dog; but not a morsel of meat was left in sight.

Something very precious, however, caught Oliver’s eye;—a great heap of pebbly gravel thrown up by the flood. The water in the Levels was usually so bad that the settlers had to filter it; and Oliver knew that no water was purer than that which had been filtered through gravel. He believed now that poor George could have a good drink of water, at least; and he scooped up with his hands enough gravel to half fill the tub. It took a long time to heap up as much as he could carry upon the rug; and then it was hard work to empty it into the tub; and he fancied every moment that he heard Roger coming. It was a pity he did not know that Roger had fallen fast asleep in the sun, on the other side of the hill; and that his dog lay winking beside him, not thinking of stirring.

One thing more must be had;—chips for fuel. When Oliver had got enough of these, and of sticks too, he found courage and strength to stay a few minutes more, to make up such a fire for Roger as would probably last till after he should have discovered the loss of the flint, and so prevent his being without fire till he could find another flint. In order to give him a broad hint, Oliver spread out the blanket on the ground, and set the tinder-box in the middle of it, where it would be sure to invite attention. He then climbed into the tub, and was glad to be off, drawing the basket with the fire-wood after him.

“Here, Ailwin,” said he, faintly, as he reached the window, “take the flint and the tinder, and the wood in the basket, and make a fire. I have brought you nothing to eat.”

“No need!” said Ailwin, with an uncommonly merry countenance.

“You must broil the green corn, unless we can manage to get a fowl from across the yard. But I really cannot go any more errands till I am rested,” said Oliver, dismally.

“No need, Oliver dear!” said Ailwin again.

“What do you think we have found to eat?” cried Mildred, from the stairs.—“What is the matter with him, Ailwin? Why does not he speak?”

“He is so tired, he does not know what to do,” said Ailwin. “No, don’t get down into the water again, dear. I’ll carry you. Put your arm round my neck, and I’ll carry you.”

And the good-natured woman carried him up to the roof, and laid him down on a bundle of bedding there, promising to bring him breakfast presently. She threw an apron over his head, to cover it from the hot sun, and bade him lie still, and not think of anything till she came.

“Only one thing,” said Oliver. “Take particular care of the gravel in the tub.”

“Gravel!” exclaimed Ailwin. “The fowls eat gravel; but I don’t see that we can. However, you shall have your way, Oliver.”

The tired boy was asleep in a moment. He knew nothing more till he felt vexed at somebody’s trying to wake him. It was Mildred. He heard her say,—

“How very sound asleep he is! I can’t make him stir. Here, Oliver,—just eat this, and then you can go to sleep again directly.”

He tried to rouse himself, and sat up; but his eyes were so dim, and the light so dazzling, that he could not see, at first, what Mildred had in her hands. It was one of her mother’s best china plates,—one of the set that was kept in a closet up-stairs; and upon it was a nice brown toasted fish, steaming hot.

“Is that for me?” asked Oliver, rubbing his eyes.

“Yes, indeed, for who but you?” said Ailwin, whose smiling face popped up from the stairs. “Who deserves it, if you do not, I should like to know? It is not so good as I could have wished, though, Oliver. I could not broil it, for want of butter and everything; and we have no salt, you know. But, come! Eat it, such as it is. Come, begin!”

“But have you all got some too?” asked the hungry boy, as he eyed the fish.

“Oh, yes,—George and all,” said Mildred. “We ate ours first, because you were so sound asleep, we did not like to wake you.”

“How long have I been asleep?” asked Oliver, beginning heartily upon his fish. “How could you get this nice fish? How busy you must have been all this time that I have been asleep!”

“All this time!” exclaimed Mildred. “Why, you have been asleep only half an hour; hardly so much. We have only just lighted the fire, and cooked the fish, and fed Geordie, and put him to sleep, and got our own breakfast;—and we were not long about that,—we were so very hungry! That is all we have done since you went to sleep.”

“It seems a great deal for half an hour,” said Oliver. “How good this fish is! Where did you get it?”

“I found it on the stairs. Ah! I thought you would not believe it; but we shall find more, I dare say, as the water sinks; and then you will believe what you see.”

“On the stairs! How did it get there?”

“The same way that the water got there, I suppose, and the poor little drowned pig that lay close by the same place. There was a whole heap of fish washed up at the turn of the stairs; enough for us all to-day. Ailwin said we must eat them first, because the pig will keep. Such a nice little clean sucking-pig!”

“That puts me in mind of the poor sow,” said Oliver. “I forgot her when we were busy about the cow. I am afraid she is drowned or starved before this; but we must see about it.”

“Not now,” said Mildred. “Do you go to sleep again now. There is not such a hurry as there was, the waters are going down so fast.”

“Are they, indeed?—Oh, I do not want to sleep any more. I am quite wide awake now. Are you sure the flood is going down?”

“Only look! Look at that steep red bank on the Red-hill, where it was all a green slope yesterday, and covered with water this morning. Look at the little speck of a hillock, where neighbour Gool’s house was. We could not see that this morning, I am sure. And if you will come down, you will find that there is scarcely any water in the upper rooms now. Geordie might play at paddling there, as he is so fond of doing in his tub. Ailwin thinks we might sleep there to-night, if we could only get everything dried.”

“We might get many things dried before night, in such a sun as this. How very hot it is!”

Oliver ran down, and convinced himself that the flood was abating fast. It must have swelled up higher within the house than outside; for it had sunk three feet in the upper rooms, and two on the outer walls of the house. Now that the worst of the danger seemed to be past, the children worked with fresh spirit, making all possible use of the sunshine for drying their bedding and clothes, in hopes of sleeping in a chamber this night, instead of on the house-top, which they had feared would be necessary. Nothing could have made them believe, if they had been told at sunrise, how cheerfully they would sit down, in the afternoon, to rest and talk, and hope that they might, after all, meet their father and mother again soon, alive and well.

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