"To be sure, Oliver, that is the very reason. One must take one"s revenge while one can. However, I wont notice him any more till you do."
"Cannot you set down your pail, and help me to row?" asked Oliver. He was quite tired. The raft was heavy now; his nose had not left off bleeding, and his head ached sadly. Three pulls from Ailwin brought them nearer home than all Oliver"s previous efforts. He observed that they must get round the house, if possible, and into the stream which ran through the garden, so as to land Roger on the Red-hill.
There was not much difficulty in getting round, as everything like a fence had long been swept away. As they pa.s.sed near the entrance-door to the garden, they observed that the waters were still sinking. They stood now only half-way up the door-posts. Oliver declared that when he was a little less tired, he would go through the lower rooms in a tub, and see whether he could pick up anything useful. He feared, however, that almost everything must have been swept off through the windows, in the water-falls that Mildred had thought so pretty, the first day of the flood.
"There is a chest!" exclaimed Oliver, pointing to a little creek in which a stout chest had stuck. "Roger, I do believe it is the very chest that ... that we began our quarrel about. Come, now, is not this a sign that we ought to make it up?"
Roger would not appear to hear: so his companions made short work of it.
They pulled in for the sh.o.r.e of the Red-hill, and laid Roger on the slimy bank:--for they saw no occasion to carry one so heavy and so sulky up to the nice bed of gra.s.s which was spread at the top of the red precipice that the waters had cut Oliver knew that there was a knife in Roger"s pocket. He took it out, cut the cord which tied his wrists, and threw the knife to a little distance, where Roger could easily reach it in order to free his legs; but not in time to overtake them before they should have put off again.
Roger made one catch at Oliver"s leg, but missing it, lay again as if dead; and Ailwin believed he had not yet stirred when the raft rounded the house again, with the great chest in tow.
Mildred was delighted to see them back, and especially without Roger.
She thought Oliver"s face looked very shocking, but Oliver would not say a word about this, or anything else, till he had found Roger"s dog, and gone over in the basket, to set him ash.o.r.e with his master.
"There!" said he, as he stepped in at the window when this was accomplished, "we have done their business. There they are, in their desert island, as they were before. Now we need not think any more about them, but attend to our own affairs."
"Your face, Oliver! Pray do--"
"Never mind my face, dear, if it does not frighten poor Geordie. How is poor Geordie?"
"I do not think he is any better. I never saw him so fretful, and so hot and ill. And he cries so dreadfully!"
CHAPTER EIGHT.
NEW QUARTERS.
Ailwin presently made George"s supper, with milk, a little thickened with meal. They were all about the child, watching how he would take it, when a loud crack was heard.
"What is that?" cried Oliver.
"It is a crack," said Ailwin, "in the wall or somewhere. I heard just such a one while Mildred was gone out to play, after dinner."
"And there was another while you were away," said Mildred. "Some plaster fell that time:--look here! In this corner.--What is the matter, Oliver? What makes you look so frightened? What does it mean?"
"It means, I am afraid, that more of the house is coming down. Look at this great zigzag crack in the wall!--and how loose the plaster hangs in that part of the ceiling! I really think,--I am quite sure, we ought not to stay here any longer."
"But where can we go? What shall we do?"
"We must think about that, and lose no time. I think this room will fall very soon."
Mildred could not help crying, and saying that they could not settle themselves, and rest at all. She never saw anything like it. They were all so tired they did not know what to do; and now they should have to work as hard as ever. She never saw anything like it.
"No, dear, never," said her brother: "and thousands of people, far older than you, never saw anything like this flood. But you know, Mildred, we must not die, if we can help it."
This reminded Mildred who it was that set them these heavy tasks,--that bade them thus labour to preserve the lives He gave. She was silent Oliver went on--
"If ever we meet father and mother again, we shall not mind our having been ever so much tired now. We shall like telling them all our plans and doings, if it should please G.o.d that we should ever sit with them by the fire-side."
"Or whenever we meet them in heaven, if they should not be alive now,"
said Mildred.
"Yes, dear; but we will talk over all that when we get to the Red-hill:--we must not talk any more now, but set to work. However, I really think, Mildred, that father and mother are still alive somewhere.
I feel as if they were."
"But the Red-hill," said Mildred, "what do you mean about the Red-hill?
We are not going there, where Roger is,--are we?"
"We must, dear. There is no other place. Roger is very unkind: but floods and falling houses are unkinder still. Come, Ailwin, help me with the raft. We must carry away what we can before dark. There will be no house standing to-morrow morning, I am afraid."
"Sleep on the ground!" exclaimed Ailwin. "Without a roof to cover us!
My poor grandfather little thought I should ever come to that."
"If you will move the beds, you need not sleep on the bare ground," said Oliver. "Now, Ailwin, don"t you begin to cry. Pray don"t. You are a grown-up woman, and Mildred and I are only children. You ought to take care of us, instead of beginning to cry."
"That is pretty true," said Ailwin: "but I little thought ever to sleep without a roof over my head."
"Come, come, there are the trees," said Oliver. "They are something of a roof, while the leaves are on."
"And there is all that cloth," said Mildred; "that immensely long piece of cloth. Would not that make a tent, somehow?"
"Capital!" cried Oliver. "How well we shall be off with a cloth tent!
It seems as if that cloth was sent on purpose. It is so spoiled already, that we can hardly do it any harm. And I am sure the person that wove it would be very glad that it should cover our heads to-night.
I shall carry it and you across before anything else--this very minute.
I will run down and bring the raft round to the door below. The water is low enough now for you to get out that way.--Oh dear! I wish I was not so tired! I can hardly move. But I must forget all that; for it will not do to stay here."
While he was gone, Mildred asked Ailwin whether she was very tired.
"Pretty much; but not so bad as he," replied Ailwin.
"Then do not you think you and I could fetch off a good many things, while he watches Geordie on the gra.s.s? If you thought you could row the raft, I am sure I could carry a great many things down-stairs, and land them on the hill."
Ailwin had no doubt she could row, in such a narrow and gentle stream as now ran through the garden.
She made the trial first when Oliver was on board, and several other times with Mildred, succeeding always very well. Oliver was extremely glad of this; for the bridge-basket had been used so much, and sometimes for such heavy weights, that it was wearing out, and might break down at any moment. The bridge-rope, too, being the stoutest cord they had, was very useful for tying the raft to the trunk of the beech, so that it could not be carried away. When once this rope was well fastened, Oliver was content to rest himself on the gra.s.s beside Geordie, and let the strong Ailwin and little Mildred work as they wished. It surprised him, well as he knew Ailwin, to see the loads she could carry, bringing a good-sized mattress up the bank as easily as he could have carried a pillow. She wrung the wet out of the long piece of home-spun, and spread it out in the sun, to dry as much as it could before dark, and seemed to think no more of it than Mildred did of washing her doll"s petticoat.
Mildred took charge of the lighter articles that required care--her mother"s china, for one thing; for it was found that nothing made of earthenware remained unbroken in the lower rooms. There were some pewter plates, which were now lodged under the beech, together with pots and pans, knives and forks, and horn spoons. There was no table light enough to be moved, but a small one of deal, which Ailwin dragged out from under water, with all its legs broken: but enough of it remained entire to make it preferable to the bare ground for preparing their food on, when once it should be dry. There was a stool a-piece--not forgetting one for Roger; and Mildred took care that Geordie should have his own little chair. Not even Ailwin could carry a chest of drawers: but she carried down the separate drawers, with the clothes of the family in them. No one of the household had ever seen a carpet; but there was matting on some of the floors. Ailwin pulled up pieces of this, to be some protection against the damp and insects of the ground.
"It is as wet as water now," said she; "but we must not quarrel with anything to-day on that account; and matting will dry on the hill better than at home. If it turns out rotten, we must try and spare a piece of the cloth from overhead, to lay underfoot: but George will feel it more like home, if he has a bit of matting to trip his little foot against."
So down-stairs went a great bundle of wet matting.
"Will not that do for to-night?" asked Oliver, languidly, as he saw Ailwin preparing to put off again, when the sun was just touching the western hills. "You know we have to put up the tent, and get something to eat before we can go to sleep; and it has been such a long, long day!"
"As you please," said Ailwin; "but you said the house would be down in the night; and there are many things yet that we should be sorry to have to do without."