Part 9 (2/2)
”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 b.u.t.ter 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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.
CHAPTER SIX.
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