Chapter 3

THE YOUNG NAVIGATOR.

"The first thing is to get up to the house," said Alfy. "I shall have to jump into the water and wade, after all, Mansy."

"I couldn't permit it, Master Alfy, indeed I couldn't!" replied his nurse decidedly.

Alfy knew that when Mansy used that word "permit," her mind was very much made up indeed. It was one of her rare words, used only on great occasions and when much emphasis was intended.

"Well, how are we to get to the house?" he said. "Let us consider. Oh, I know!" he exclaimed in a few moments. "Good idea! a jolly dodge!"

"Can you get my bow and arrows, Edie?" he shouted, "and my kite string?"

"What for?"

"To shoot the string to us," he replied. "Unwind it, and tie one end to the arrow just above the feathers, and see if you can't shoot it to us."

"Don't hit us!" screamed Mansy.

Then the girls with the candle-light disappeared from the window, and the boy and the old nurse were left in the tub to await events.

"What a long time the girls are!" he exclaimed presently. "I expect they cannot find the things." The girls were not really so long as appeared to the wearied watchers in the moonlight; but at length Edie and her sister, with Jane, the servant-maid, showed themselves again at the window.

"Ah! they've got the bow and arrows," said Mansy.

"Look out," cried Madge, "I don't want to hurt you." And Alfy and Mansy covered their faces and screwed themselves down in the tub as well as they could, the irrepressible Alfy laughing meanwhile, and saying he did not think they need take such great precautions. Mansy, however, was rather fidgety about it.

"If the arrow did get into your eyes, you know, Master Alfy, I should never forgive myself!" she said.

"But I should like to peep and see how Madge does it, you know," argued Alfy.

"Now, I'm going to shoot," screamed Madge. She shot; and the arrow fell midway between the house and the boat.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the boy outright "To think of making all that fuss for nothing." Then he cried aloud, "Pull the arrow back quick, Madge, and raise the bow higher when you shoot again; draw the bowstring back as far as you can."

"And tie some more string to the kite line if it is not long enough," cried Mansy.

So with much laughter from the girls they pulled the arrow back from the water by the string attached to it and tried again. They were not expert archers, and failed once more--failed indeed several times. But at last the arrow fell quite near the tub, and Alfy called out to his sisters not to draw it back as it floated closer, and then with the help of the handle of Mansy's bulgy umbrella he pulled it in and of course the kite string with it.

This string was of great length. Alfy was fond of kite flying, and by adding together long pieces of string he had acquired a tether of considerable extent. To lengthen it still more, however, the girls had managed to find some more string, and so it came about that communication was established between the inhabitants of the house and the watchers in the tub.

"That thin string will never pull us along," said Mansy doubtfully. "It'll break!"

"Not if we help, I hope," exclaimed Alfy cheerfully. "We must paddle our hardest, so the strain on the line won't be so great."

"Don't pull yet," he cried; "not till I tell you, Edie." Then he cut the tub free from the laburnum, and, pushing the umbrella hard against the trunk of the tree, gave the tub a vigorous push in the direction of the house; and while it was floating thither, he called out to the girls to pull the string lightly, and commenced to paddle at the same time. Mansy also endeavoured to help with her inseparable umbrella, and so now all of them were endeavouring to persuade the heavily laden and clumsy craft to float against the flood to the house.

It was a tiresome task. The young navigator was obliged to go very slowly, and to constantly ask his sisters not to pull hard, lest the string should break. The vigorous push-off had given them a good start, and they made a little progress.

Once the string broke, but Alfy was able to fish up the line, for it was near, and Mansy knotted the broken ends together again. He now began to be more expert with his improvised paddles, and the string just kept tight, but with scarcely any strain upon it, yet prevented the tub from "wobbling"--steered it in fact to the house, and helped to counteract the flow of the water.

So gradually they progressed to the house. The moon was now declining, and a dark hour before the early dawn was at hand.

"How I'm going to get inside that house I don't know!" ejaculated Mansy at last, after surveying the front for some little time. "I can't get through the door--that would let the water in,--and climb to the upper part of that winder, I couldn't!"

"Oh, we'll manage it, dear Mansy, somehow, never fear! We are getting through our difficulties splendidly!"

But when they did get the tub safe under the window--which was accomplished at last--and Alfy had expressed his joy with a loud hurrah, then the new difficulty presented itself in full force. They were afraid to open the lower sash of the window, as the level of the water was just above it.

"How am I to scramble over the upper sash?" she exclaimed; "and how am I to get down on the other side?"

"Yes! and the room is full of water," cried Edie from the window above.

"Not full, Edie!" expostulated Alfy.

"Well, there is a great deal all over the floor, and in all the lower rooms," explained his sister.

"Oh! dear me! what a mess to clear up," exclaimed Mansy.

"Let me get in and see," said Alfy sturdily.

"Do take care, and don't cut yourself with the glass!" Mansy cried, as she saw him clambering up over the top sash of the window. This he had first pulled down as far as he could, and he also helped himself by the sash lines. The breaking of the glass might of course prove very dangerous, but he found another difficulty when, having climbed over the sash, he stood a-tiptoe on the bottom of the window frame inside the room, and clung for support to the top sash. How was he to descend? Inside the room was dark, but he thought he saw the gleam of water. He hesitated to jump at hazard, not knowing where he might alight.

"Lower a candle, Edie," he cried, "and then I can see my way better!"

So presently down came a lighted candle, bobbing to and fro as the little sister lowered it. Alfy caught it with one hand and held it inside the room. "Oh! what a mess," he exclaimed, as he saw the water all over the apartment, with teapot cosy, music, papers, wool-mats, and all kinds of well-known pleasant household things floating despondingly on its muddy surface.

"What shall we do?" cried Mansy from the outside. "Oh! help me to get indoors, so that I can clear up a bit!"

"I don't see yet how I am to get down, Mansy. The table is too far off for me to jump to it, and the water seems high!"

"Oh! you mustn't get in the water, Master Alfy!" shrieked poor Mansy, "Oh, I am so tired of this rockety old washin' tub! Can't you get me out, Alfy dear?"

"I'll get you out, Mansy, somehow, never fear," assented Alfy cheerily. "Now, Edie dear, can you let down a chair and some hassocks for me to stand on?"

And the busy girls above tied string to the back of a chair and carefully lowered it, and some hassocks followed.

Alfy soon placed the chair in the room and piled the hassocks on it. Then lightly stepping on to them, he was able to make his way to the table, and also to the sideboard. Next, by means of chairs and hassocks he made his way to the staircase, and, having hastily mounted it, put his head out of the nearest upstairs window and shouted, "Hullo, Mansy!"

"Oh! bless the boy!" exclaimed Mansy with a start. "You have got up there, have you? I do wish I was safe up there, too, Alfy!"

"You soon will be, Mansy," he replied cheerily.

"Oh! we are glad you've come," cried his sisters, as he met them and kissed them. "But how are we to get Mansy up? She can never climb in through the window!"

"She'd fall in the water," remarked Jane, "and there would be a pretty to-do!"

"Do you think we could pull the tub up with Mansy in it to the window?" asked Alfy.

"It would be very heavy," suggested Jane.

"And Mansy might fall out," exclaimed the younger sister, with eager face and wide-open eyes.

"The distance is not very great," remarked Alfy, as he leaned out of the window and looked down. "And it is less still, of course, up to the top sash of the window, where I got in. Oh! I know," he added joyfully; "we will push the table in the downstairs room close to the window and put a chair on it, and then, if we can pull Mansy up to the same level, she can creep in over the sashes of the window, on to the chair."

"Oh! that will be delightful," said the girls. But, at first, Mansy would not hear of it. Poor Mansy! her ideas of dignity had been sadly disturbed this evening. "Me pulled up in a washin' tub?" she exclaimed. "The idea! the very idea of such a thing! And I know you'd let me fall!"

"If we did, it wouldn't hurt you," said Alfy, "because the tub would float, you know. Come on, Mansy, it's the only way I can see!"

She suffered herself to be persuaded by Alfy, and to yield to the logic of circumstances. So she fastened the piece of clothes-line that was left in the tub firmly through its two handles, and Alfy, with the girls, went downstairs, and, standing on chairs and hassocks, managed to push the table close up to the window, through which they expected Mansy to enter. Then a chair was placed upon it, so that she could creep in with comparative ease.

The next thing was more difficult. It was to haul up the tub a little way with Mansy in it. By tying a piece of thin kite string to the end of the rope, they were able easily to pull up the rope from Mansy, and then they turned it round the bed-post, and all four pulled hard together. Mansy herself helped very much by pushing the paddles against the window ledge; and presently they felt that the tub was slowly moving.

"Hurrah!" cried Alfy, "we shall do it!"

"Oh! it's off the water, and swinging about; do be careful!" cried Mansy.

"Steady it against the wall," cried Alfy. "Pull away, Jane; pull, Edie; now, all together!"

And so with pulling and shouting, and with Mansy also doing her best to help, for she was thoroughly determined to enter the house this time, if possible, they raised the tub.

But just as she was preparing to creep in the window--either the children relaxed their efforts, or they were not aware of the necessity of holding the rope very tight when not pulling--suddenly, down went the tub, splash!

"Oh! oh! oh!" cried Mansy, "I shall be drowned."

The children rushed to the window terror-stricken. But they soon found, to their great relief, that Mansy was more frightened than hurt, and in fact was not hurt at all, though much splashed with water.

"Oh, I thought the rockety thing was going down," she cried; "it went down pretty far."

"But it's all right, Mansy," said Alfy cheerfully; "and now, we'll try again, and keep tight hold this time!"

Mansy was very frightened, but eventually she did try, and all working away for the same object, she did at last manage to clamber in on the chair, and pick her way on chairs and hassocks over the water to the stairs.

Oh! what kissings and congratulations there were, when she found herself safe and sound, once more, with all the children!

* * * * *

Next morning the difficulty of providing food presented itself, as they knew it would. They had barely enough for one good meal. And as they scanned the watery scene around the house, there seemed no sign, and but little likelihood of any person coming to them from the village.

"I must go in the tub to the nearest land," said Alfy, "and then run to the village. I shall not be long."

"What! go in that rockety thing again, Alfy?"

"Why, yes, Mansy. You see it will be lighter with only one in it. And I will take the line and rope. Oh! I shall manage."

And so he pushed off. The flood was still flowing, and carried him quickly away from the house. He guided the tub to the laburnum tree, where a piece of the rope was still hanging. "I will get that rope," said he, and twisting a piece of the line in the tub round the tree, he climbed up. He found his task more difficult than he had supposed, but when he had succeeded and was about to descend, behold! to his amazement and chagrin the line had become loose, and the action of the water was just floating the tub away out of his reach.

He made a desperate endeavour to save it by trying to throw into it the tin which was still attached to the rope in the tree. But it missed; and on floated the tub, slowly, but provokingly, bobbing about in the morning sunshine, leaving him alone in the tree!