ne after the other.

No sooner thought of than begun. He glanced at Mansy, but she, good
woman, greatly wearied by the events of the day, was still slumbering,
if her uneasy doze could be so described. So he commenced quietly to
cast off the rope from the branch. "If I can but manage it, how nice
it would be for Mansy to wake up and find herself at the house," he
said.

So the plucky little fellow pushed the tub from the embrace of the
branches once more into the flow of the flood; but this time, instead
of attempting to stem the stream and struggle to the house, he sought
to guide the drifting of his clumsy little bark towards a hedge leading
up to the one surrounding the grounds of the house.

It was a difficult task, but not so difficult or so hopeless as
endeavouring to reach the house by paddling direct up to it against the
flood. Presently he was near enough to throw the rope to the hedge.
Once! twice! thrice he threw it, before he was able to guide the tub at
all by its aid. Then progress was slow at first, but at length the
rope was twisted firmly round some branches, and he was able to pull
the tub along hand over hand quite quickly.

Once beside the hedge, his task was comparatively easy. By pulling at
some of the branches, one after the other, he was able to urge his
strange craft along, and soon he had reached the point in the hedge
nearest the building. Then he paused to consider. Clearly it was of
no use to continue beside the hedge. That would only lead him round
the house, but not to the house itself.

So he looked out for the nearest object to which he could throw the
rope. Now, on the little lawn grew a rather tall laburnum tree. "If,"
thought Alfy, "I could fasten my rope round that, I could soon pull the
tub up to it." After considering a few minutes he took the tin in
which the tongue had been brought, and fastened it firmly to the end of
the rope.

"This will make it easier to throw," he said, "and the tin will be more
likely to become entangled in the branches or twist round them."

His plan was successful. After three or four ineffectual efforts the
tin was caught firmly in the branches, and he commenced to haul the tub
quite close to the tree.

Then another difficulty presented itself. How should the tin be
disentangled? He soon found that it could not be done from his
position in the tub, for he could not reach it in any way; so he
whipped out his knife ready to cut the