Ailwin persisted that time would show what Roger was—to which they all agreed. Oliver observed that meanwhile Ailwin, who was the oldest person among them, should not try to frighten a little girl, who was the youngest of all, except George. Ailwin said she should keep her own thoughts; though, to be sure, she need not always say what they were to everybody.
“About this cow,” thought Oliver, aloud. “We must plan some way to feed her.”
“Take care!” exclaimed Mildred, as he began to descend the stairs. But the words were scarcely out of her mouth when her brother called to her that the water had sunk. She ran to see, and saw, with her own eyes, that the water did not quite come up to the wet mark it had left on the wall of the stairs. Ailwin thought but little of it—it was such a trifle; and Oliver allowed that it might be a mere accident, arising from the flood having found some new vent about the house; but still, the water had sunk; and that was a sight full of hope.
“Have you heard the cow low, Roger?” asked Oliver.
“Yes, to be sure. She may well low; for she must be hungry enough.”
“And wet and cold enough, too, poor thing! I am going to see whether, I can find out exactly where she is, and whether we cannot do something for her.”
Ailwin called down-stairs to Oliver, to say that there was a washtub floating about in the room they had slept in. If he could find it, he might row himself about in that, in the chambers, instead of always wading in the water, catching his death of cold.
Oliver took the hint, and presently appeared in the tub, rowing himself with a slip of the wood he had brought over from the Red-hill. Roger stared at him as he rowed himself out of one chamber, and opened the door of another, entering it in fine style. Roger presently followed to see what was doing, and perhaps to try how he liked a voyage in a tub in a large chamber.
“I see her,” cried Oliver, from the window. “I see poor cow’s head, and the ridge of her back above water.”
Roger came splashing to the window to look, and jumped into the tub, making it sink a good deal; but it held both the boys very well. Roger thought the cow very stupid that she did not get upon the great dunghill behind her, which would keep her whole body out of the water. Oliver thought that, as the dunghill was behind her, she could not see it. He wished he could go, and put her in mind of it. He thought he would try to cross in the tub, if he could so connect it with the window as that it might be drawn back, in case of his being unable to pass the little current that there was between the house and the ruins of the yard-buildings—of which little remained.