“Oh, yes,—George and all,” said Mildred. “We ate ours first, because you were so sound asleep, we did not like to wake you.”
“How long have I been asleep?” asked Oliver, beginning heartily upon his fish. “How could you get this nice fish? How busy you must have been all this time that I have been asleep!”
“All this time!” exclaimed Mildred. “Why, you have been asleep only half an hour; hardly so much. We have only just lighted the fire, and cooked the fish, and fed Geordie, and put him to sleep, and got our own breakfast;—and we were not long about that,—we were so very hungry! That is all we have done since you went to sleep.”
“It seems a great deal for half an hour,” said Oliver. “How good this fish is! Where did you get it?”
“I found it on the stairs. Ah! I thought you would not believe it; but we shall find more, I dare say, as the water sinks; and then you will believe what you see.”
“On the stairs! How did it get there?”
“The same way that the water got there, I suppose, and the poor little drowned pig that lay close by the same place. There was a whole heap of fish washed up at the turn of the stairs; enough for us all to-day. Ailwin said we must eat them first, because the pig will keep. Such a nice little clean sucking-pig!”
“That puts me in mind of the poor sow,” said Oliver. “I forgot her when we were busy about the cow. I am afraid she is drowned or starved before this; but we must see about it.”
“Not now,” said Mildred. “Do you go to sleep again now. There is not such a hurry as there was, the waters are going down so fast.”
“Are they, indeed?—Oh, I do not want to sleep any more. I am quite wide awake now. Are you sure the flood is going down?”