“Please, sir, may I go with Mitford to seek for water?” asked Nellie.
“By all means, if you wish to.”
“And I will keep you company, Nell,” said Mrs Hayward energetically.
“So will I,” chimed in little Mrs Mitford, feebly. “I was always fond of water. As a child I used to paddle about in it continually, an’ sometimes tumbled into it, for of course young people will—”
“No, Peggy, you must sit by the fire with my wife,” said the doctor. “Neither of you is fit for work of any kind yet, so sit down and warm yourselves.”
Eva was too wise and Peggy too weak to offer objection, so these two sat by the fire while the others went to work.
Energy of action tends to lighten the burdens that may be laid on human spirits, and to induce the most favourable view of the worst circumstances. The toil which the party now undertook was such a blessed relief to them after the prolonged exposure to cold and comparative inaction in the boat, that all returned to the camp-fire in a much more cheerful state of mind than they left it. The searchers for water came back first, having found what they sought close at hand; and Terrence, filling his baling-dish, soon had the pork boiling, along with some mysterious herbs gathered by the doctor to convert the liquid into soup. Tomlin and Black Ned returned heavily laden with firewood, and Bob Massey discovered a tree with branches sufficiently spreading and leafy to protect them to some extent from rain.
“’Tis as well we have found overhead protection, Massey,” said the doctor, when our coxswain led him to the spot, “for I have been thinking that as we have no blankets, we shall be obliged to use our tarpaulin as a quilt rather than an umbrella.”
“That’s true, sir,” returned Massey, “but how about the women?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” said Hayward, “and I’ve devised a plan for to-night at least; to-morrow I hope to hit on a better arrangement. First of all, we’ll spread in front of a fire, which we will kindle beneath this tree, a layer of branches and grass. In the middle of this the women will lie down side by side, after having dried and warmed themselves thoroughly at the fire. Then we’ll take two of the floor planks from the boat, and put one on each side of them—partially frame them, as it were. Then one half of us men will lie down on one side of the frame, the other half on the other side, and we’ll draw the tarpaulin over us all.”