“Do you?” said Mildred, who did not quite know what it was to be ruined. “How? Why?”
“Why, it was bad enough that so much gypsum was spoiled yesterday. I am afraid now the whole quarry will be spoiled. And then I doubt whether the harvest will not be ruined all through the Levels: and I am pretty sure nothing will be growing in the garden when the waters are gone. That was not our horse that went by; but our horse may be drowned, and the cow, and the sow, and everything.”
“Not the fowls,” said Mildred. “Look at them, all in a row on the top of the cow-shed. They will not be drowned, at any rate.”
“But then they may be starved. O dear!” he continued, with a start of recollection, “I wonder whether Ailwin has thought of moving the meal and the grain up-stairs. It will be all rotted and spoiled if the water runs through it.”
He shouted, and made signs to Ailwin, with all his might; but in vain. She could not hear a word he said, or make anything of his signs. He was vexed, and said Ailwin was always stupid.
“So she is,” replied Mildred; “but it does not signify now. Look how the water is pouring out of the parlour-window. The meal and grain must have been wet through long ago. Is not that a pretty waterfall? A waterfall from our parlour-window, down upon the tulip-bed! How very odd!”
“If one could think how to feed these poor animals,” said Oliver,—“and the fowls! If there was anything here that one could get for them! One might cut a little grass for the cow;—but there is nothing else.”
“Only the leaves of the trees, and a few blackberries, when they are ripe,” said Mildred, looking round her, “and flowers,—wild-flowers, and a few that mother planted.”
“The bees!” cried Oliver. “Let us save them. They can feed themselves. We will save the bees.”
“Why, you don’t think they are drowned?” said Mildred.