The Island House Part 3

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.

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, pus.h.i.+ng 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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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!"