Chapter 2

TO THE LABURNUM TREE.

"What shall we do now?"

It was Mansy who echoed Alfy's cry. "Can't we stop it somehow, Master Alfy?" she added. "Tie it with the rope to the top of some tree or something. Look there, could we not catch the line on there?" and she pointed to the shrubby top of a big bush or tree. Alfy could not exactly see what it was, but he saw something jutting up above the water.

The boy hastily took up his ladles, and endeavoured to steer the strange bark to the point indicated. It was a weary, troublesome task. Then Mansy threw the line, trying to catch it in the branches, and nearly overbalanced herself into the water.

"The rockety thing!" she exclaimed, half in alarm and half in contempt. "I feared it 'ud go over."

"It's all right, Mansy, if you sit still," said Alfy; "but try and paddle it with the umbrella to the tree."

So they both endeavoured to float it in the desired direction, and at length Alfy thought he might venture to throw the rope. He did so, and with some good effect, for it fell over a branch, and, though it did not wind tightly round and had no firm hold, he could just give the tub a bias in that direction.

After plying his paddles with fairly good result for a little time, he drew in the rope, and again launched it forth at the tree top. Again he was, to some extent, successful, and in a few minutes he was able to float the tub in among the branches.

"Here we are!" he cried, "quite like the baby in the nursery rhyme--'Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree top,' you know, eh, Mansy dear? Now we will tie the tub firmly to the branches, so that there will be no fear of floating away!"

"You have managed well, Master Alfy," said Mansy, admiringly.

"Oh, but it was your idea; and look, we are not so very far from the house!"

"I wish we were there!" sighed Mansy.

"So do I," said Alfy, "but, Mansy dear, I really am very hungry, and you said you had something to eat in those packages!"

"And so I have," replied his old nurse. "Dear boy, you must be hungry. I suppose the girls have something left?"

"Oh yes, quite enough for another meal, I should think! I wish we could let them know we are safe, and not so very far away."

"Burn a light; I have some matches and a little spirit lamp. I bought it with some other things yesterday, thinking it might be handy in the summer, when the kitchen fire was out, to boil a little water."

"Oh, what fun!" cried Alfy. "We are just like wrecked sailors or something, near a desert island! We'll burn some of the papers round the parcels to make a great flare."

So the lamp was lit, and the papers burned, and Alfy waved the flimsy, flaming torch bravely for a minute or so, that the watchers in the island house might just catch a glimpse of them and of their position.

An answering light was soon flashed back by the girls, so they knew that their own had been seen.

"Now we will take some of this tongue," said Mansy, producing the tin in which it was preserved, "Lucky I got the young man in the shop to open it. But what about a knife to cut it?"

"Won't this do?" asked Alfy, producing his pocket-knife. "At all events, it is better than nothing."

"Why, bless the boy! so it is; but I am afraid it won't do very well. Howsomdever, we'll make the best of it!"

"Perhaps I can manage it better than you, Mansy," suggested Alfy. "I am more used to it, you know; and really it is a splendid knife when you know how to use it."

"Yes, I should think so, _when_ you know how to use it, my dear, but I cannot do very much with it in cutting nice slices!"

"Oh, never mind the nice slices, if we can get some nice mouthfuls," laughed the boy. And he proceeded to cut some small slips off the top of the tongue with great facility, considering the unsuitability of the small pocket-knife for the purpose.

"Capital!" cried his nurse, as Alfy handed her a few of the small slices, and then she produced some biscuits, and Alfy and Mansy made quite an enjoyable meal.

"I wish this water was fit to drink," she said, "for I feel thirsty. Now tell me where it comes from, if you can, and how the flood happened?"

"It was yesterday afternoon," replied Alfy. "About three o'clock we suddenly heard a loud noise, and then the water came rushing all round the house and into the lower rooms too! We were frightened and surprised at first, I can tell you!"

"I expect you were," replied Mansy sympathetically. "And all in the lower rooms. Oh, mercy on us, what a to-do! Is the mill-dam broke, do you think?"

"I don't know, Mansy. I'm not sure if it came that way. Have some more tongue, Mansy dear? It's jolly!"

"Thank you," exclaimed Mansy; "I don't mind if I do, Master Alfy. Well," she continued, as she took out some more biscuits, "if anybody'd told me this morning that I should have had my supper to-night in a washin' tub on the water I'd 'a said they was cracked!"

"And so should I," said Alfy. "Still, here we are, Mansy; and the next question is how long shall we be obliged to stay?"

"Yes, indeed," she sighed; "that is the question, and one we can't answer!"

"We must make the best of it," he said bravely. "I think I could swim to the house and drag the tub by the rope."

"I wouldn't hear of it for the world, Master Alfy," protested his nurse; "you'd catch your death!"

"Perhaps I could walk in the water," he replied. "I don't believe it is very deep. Try it, dear Mansy, with your umbrella, and see how deep it is."

"I wouldn't let you, Master Alfy; I wouldn't indeed. You'd catch your death, I tell you!"

"But we can't stay here all night, Mansy."

"I can't let you get into the water, Master Alfy. You don't know how deep it is, nor how strong it's a-runnin'; and you'll catch your death!"

"What dreadful disasters!" laughed Alfy. But he knew quite well that his nurse could make up her mind firmly, and that it would be useless to argue with her. Still he thought he might have tried to get the boat nearer the house.

The moon was now shining brightly, and a beautiful silvery path of light lay on the water. Alfy sat on the side of the tub opposite his nurse and watched the scene. It was a strange picture--the unaccustomed flood, the dark mass of the house, and the tree tops standing out of the water, the bright moonlight, which seemed to make the scene almost more desolate, and the curious craft in which they were sitting. The scene deeply impressed itself on Alfy's mind.

"Well, it is of no use to sit here doing nothing," said Mansy presently. "If we cannot do anything else, I think we'll try and go to sleep. I am so tired. Perhaps we can see better in the morning what to do."

"How funny to sleep in a tub on the water!" exclaimed Alfy.

"Yes, and all through me," said Mansy; "I am sorry. If you had not come for me you might have been in your own nice warm bed!"

"Oh, never mind me, Mansy; I could not leave you there all night."

"I might have walked to the village."

"It's all right, dear Mansy, I'm happy enough. Let us snuggle down and get to sleep."

And so after they had said their prayers, and thanked God for His preserving care, they made themselves as comfortable as they could in their strange, cramped quarters, and actually began to doze a little.

But it was an uneasy slumber, and presently Alfy awoke and found the moon shining full on his face. The light was also bright on the hedgetop surrounding the garden of the house; and the idea darted into his mind that if he could but get the tub beside the hedge he could work it along toward the house by pushing the paddles against the hedgetops or pulling at them one after the other.

No sooner thought of than begun. He glanced at Mansy, but she, good woman, greatly wearied by the events of the day, was still slumbering, if her uneasy doze could be so described. So he commenced quietly to cast off the rope from the branch. "If I can but manage it, how nice it would be for Mansy to wake up and find herself at the house," he said.

So the plucky little fellow pushed the tub from the embrace of the branches once more into the flow of the flood; but this time, instead of attempting to stem the stream and struggle to the house, he sought to guide the drifting of his clumsy little bark towards a hedge leading up to the one surrounding the grounds of the house.

It was a difficult task, but not so difficult or so hopeless as endeavouring to reach the house by paddling direct up to it against the flood. Presently he was near enough to throw the rope to the hedge. Once! twice! thrice he threw it, before he was able to guide the tub at all by its aid. Then progress was slow at first, but at length the rope was twisted firmly round some branches, and he was able to pull the tub along hand over hand quite quickly.

Once beside the hedge, his task was comparatively easy. By pulling at some of the branches, one after the other, he was able to urge his strange craft along, and soon he had reached the point in the hedge nearest the building. Then he paused to consider. Clearly it was of no use to continue beside the hedge. That would only lead him round the house, but not to the house itself.

So he looked out for the nearest object to which he could throw the rope. Now, on the little lawn grew a rather tall laburnum tree. "If," thought Alfy, "I could fasten my rope round that, I could soon pull the tub up to it." After considering a few minutes he took the tin in which the tongue had been brought, and fastened it firmly to the end of the rope.

"This will make it easier to throw," he said, "and the tin will be more likely to become entangled in the branches or twist round them."

His plan was successful. After three or four ineffectual efforts the tin was caught firmly in the branches, and he commenced to haul the tub quite close to the tree.

Then another difficulty presented itself. How should the tin be disentangled? He soon found that it could not be done from his position in the tub, for he could not reach it in any way; so he whipped out his knife ready to cut the rope.

"Why, bless the boy! where are we?"

Mansy was wide awake now. In his efforts to reach the tin he had shaken the tub a good deal and aroused her.

"Oh, Mansy, I hoped you would have slept till I got you up to the house!" he said.

"Me asleep in a washin' tub! think of that! Well, I was that dead tired I could have slep' anywheres, I do believe. But however did you get here, Master Alfy?"

"Worked along by the hedge, Mansy."

"You are a brave, clever boy, Alfy! And I do believe there's Miss Edith at the window with a light."

"Are you there?" cried a bright, fresh, girlish voice.

"At the laburnum tree," answered Alfy.

"Oh! Do be quick," answered Edie. "We are so hungry. All the bread and butter and things that were left are spoiled by the water. And we have nothing to eat!"

"And we have not much," said Mansy; "the sitiwation is really getting serious!"