The children looked at each other; and their looks told that they thought Roger was shocked and sorry, though he tried not to appear so.
“There might have been a boat, perhaps, out on the carr. Don’t you think the country-people in the hills would get out boats when they saw the flood spreading?”
“Boats, no! The hill-people have not above three boats among them all. There are about three near the ponds; and they are like nut-shells. How should any boat live in such a flood as that? Why, that flood would sweep a ship out to sea in a minute. You need not think about boats, I can tell you.”
“But won’t anybody send a boat for us?” inquired Mildred, who had drawn near to listen. “If they don’t send a boat, and the flood goes on, what are we to do? We can’t live here, with nothing to eat, and no beds, and no shelter, if it should rain.”
“Are you now beginning to cry about that? Are you now beginning to find that out, after all this time?” said Roger, contemptuously.
“I thought we should get away,” sobbed the little girl. “I thought a boat or something would come.”
“A pretty silly thing you must be!” exclaimed Roger.
“If she is silly, I am silly too,” declared Oliver. “I am not sure that it is silly to look for a boat. There are plenty out on the coast there.”
“They are all dashed to pieces long ago,” decided Roger. “And they that let in the flood will take good care you don’t get out of it,—you, and your outlanders. It is all along of you that I am in this scrape. But it was shameful of them not to give us notice;—it was too bad to catch us in the same trap with you. If uncle is drowned, and I ever get out alive, I will be revenged on them.”
Mildred stopped crying, as well as she could, to listen; but she felt like Oliver when he said,—