"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.