“We must, dear. There is no other place. Roger is very unkind: but floods and falling houses are unkinder still. Come, Ailwin, help me with the raft. We must carry away what we can before dark. There will be no house standing to-morrow morning, I am afraid.”
“Sleep on the ground!” exclaimed Ailwin. “Without a roof to cover us! My poor grandfather little thought I should ever come to that.”
“If you will move the beds, you need not sleep on the bare ground,” said Oliver. “Now, Ailwin, don’t you begin to cry. Pray don’t. You are a grown-up woman, and Mildred and I are only children. You ought to take care of us, instead of beginning to cry.”
“That is pretty true,” said Ailwin: “but I little thought ever to sleep without a roof over my head.”
“Come, come, there are the trees,” said Oliver. “They are something of a roof, while the leaves are on.”
“And there is all that cloth,” said Mildred; “that immensely long piece of cloth. Would not that make a tent, somehow?”
“Capital!” cried Oliver. “How well we shall be off with a cloth tent! It seems as if that cloth was sent on purpose. It is so spoiled already, that we can hardly do it any harm. And I am sure the person that wove it would be very glad that it should cover our heads to-night. I shall carry it and you across before anything else—this very minute. I will run down and bring the raft round to the door below. The water is low enough now for you to get out that way.—Oh dear! I wish I was not so tired! I can hardly move. But I must forget all that; for it will not do to stay here.”
While he was gone, Mildred asked Ailwin whether she was very tired.
“Pretty much; but not so bad as he,” replied Ailwin.
“Then do not you think you and I could fetch off a good many things, while he watches Geordie on the grass? If you thought you could row the raft, I am sure I could carry a great many things down-stairs, and land them on the hill.”