re was a low table in the room. She dragged
it out and placed it between the couple, who smiled, under the
impression, no doubt, that they were about to have their evening meal.

"Daddy, I'm gaun to pit yer legs on the table. It'll be mair
comfortabler, an'll keep ye oot o' the wat."

Daddy submitted with a good grace, and felt more easy than usual, the
table being very little higher than his chair. Mrs Winklemann was
equally submissive and pleased. Covering the two pairs of legs with a
blanket, old Liz produced some bread and cheese, and served out rations
thereof to keep their minds engaged. She plumed herself not a little on
the success of the table-and-legs device, but as the water rose rapidly
she became anxious again, though not for herself. She waded about the
hut with supreme indifference to the condition of her own lower limbs.
At last she mounted upon the bed and watched, as the water rose inch by
inch on the legs of the two chairs.

"What _wull_ I do whan it grups them?" she muttered, experiencing that
deep feeling of anticipation with which one might watch the gradual
approach of fire to gunpowder.

The objects of her solicitude snored pleasantly in concert.

"It'll kill them wi' the cauld, to say naething o' the start," continued
the old woman with deepening, almost desperate, anxiety. "Oh man, man,
what for did ye leave us?"

This apostrophe was addressed to the absent Winklemann.

One inch more, five minutes longer, and the flood would reach the bodies
of the old couple. Liz looked round wildly for some mode of delivering
them, but looked in vain. Even if her strength had been adequate, there
was no higher object in the room to which she could have lifted them.
The bed, being a truckle one, and lower than the chairs, was already
submerged, and old Liz herself was coolly, if not calmly, seated in two
inches of water. At the very last moment deliverance came in an
unexpected manner. There was a slight vibration in the timbers of the
hut, then a sliding of the whole edifice. This was followed by a snap
and a jolt: the ring-bolt or the rope had gone, and old Liz might, with
perfect propriety, have exclaimed, in the words of the sea song, "I'm
afloat! I'm afloat! and the Rover is free!"

For one moment her heart failed; she had read of Noah's ark, but had
never quite believed in the stability of that mansion. Her want of
faith was now rebuked, for the old hut floated admirably, as seamen