One Prisoner Released.
In the morning, it appeared that it had been right to remove to the Red-hill the night before. Only some fragments of the roof of the house remained. Some beams and a quantity of rubbish had fallen into the room where the party had lived since the flood came; and a heap of this rubbish lay on the very spot where Mildred would have been sleeping if they had stayed. All saw and considered this with awe. Roger himself looked first at the little girl, and then at that part of the ruin, as if imagining what it would have been for her to be lying there, and wondering to see her standing here, alive and unhurt.
“Look how that wall stands out;” said Oliver. “The faster the house falls, the more haste we must make to save what we can.”
“Oh! Cannot you stay quietly to-day?” asked Mildred. “I think we have got all we really want; and this bustle and hurry and hard work every day are so tiresome! Cannot we keep still and rest to-day?”
“To-morrow, dear,” replied her brother. “To-morrow is Sunday! And we will try to rest. But there is no knowing how long we may have to live in this place, in the middle of the waters; and it is my duty to save everything I can that can make George and you and the rest of us comfortable when the colder weather comes on.”
“I wonder what all the world is about, that nobody comes to see after us,” said Mildred, sighing.
“Out of sight, out of mind, Mildred,” said Ailwin. “That is the way, all the world over.”
“I am sure it is not,” said Oliver. “Mildred and I say as little as we can about father and mother, but don’t you imagine such a thing as that they are out of our minds. I know Mildred never shuts her eyes, but she sees the mill floating away, as it did that evening, and father standing...”
He could not go on about that. Presently he said, “When the flood came, I suppose, there were no boats to be had. It would take the first day to bring them from a distance, and get them afloat. Then the people would look round (as they ought to do) to see where they could do most good. Nobody who looked through a glass this way, since the day before yesterday, and saw those rafters sticking up in the air,—the house in ruins as it is,—would suppose that any one could be left alive here. From a distance, they can hardly fancy that even any little mouse could help being either drowned or starved. This will be about the last spot in the Levels that any boat will come to.—You see, Mildred, our Red-hill, though it is everything to us, is but a speck compared with the grounds that have stood above water since the waters began to sink. We had better not think of anything but living on as we can, unless it should please God that we should die.”
Roger did not want to hear anything more of this kind; so he went to where George was lying, and began to whistle softly to him. The child was so altered that his own mother would hardly have known him: but he smiled when he heard the whistle; and the smile was his own. He put up his hand and patted Roger’s face, and even pulled his hair with a good stout pull. Roger had been used to nurse his dog, though not little children. He now took George into his arms, and laid him comfortably across his knees, while he whistled till the little fellow looked full in his face, and puckered up his poor white lips, as if he would whistle too. This made Roger laugh aloud; and then George laughed. Ailwin heard them, and peeped into the corner of the tent where they were. She flew to Oliver, to tell him that Roger was at his tricks worse than ever,—he was bewitching the baby. She was angry at Oliver for telling his sister, when he had looked in too, that they might have been very glad any of them, to bewitch poor baby in this manner, when he was crying so sadly all yesterday. Mildred, for her part, ran to thank Roger, and say how glad she should be to be able to whistle as he could.