Part 3 (1/2)

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 was.h.i.+n' 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 b.u.t.ter 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!”

CHAPTER III.

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.