re about three near the ponds; and they are like nut-shells. How
should any boat live in such a flood as that? Why, that flood would
sweep a ship out to sea in a minute. You need not think about boats, I
can tell you."

"But won't anybody send a boat for us?" inquired Mildred, who had drawn
near to listen. "If they don't send a boat, and the flood goes on, what
are we to do? We can't live here, with nothing to eat, and no beds, and
no shelter, if it should rain."

"Are you now beginning to cry about that? Are you now beginning to find
that out, after all this time?" said Roger, contemptuously.

"I thought we should get away," sobbed the little girl. "I thought a
boat or something would come."

"A pretty silly thing you must be!" exclaimed Roger.

"If she is silly, I am silly too," declared Oliver. "I am not sure that
it is silly to look for a boat. There are plenty out on the coast
there."

"They are all dashed to pieces long ago," decided Roger. "And they that
let in the flood will take good care you don't get out of it,--you, and
your outlanders. It is all along of you that I am in this scrape. But
it was shameful of them not to give us notice;--it was too bad to catch
us in the same trap with you. If uncle is drowned, and I ever get out
alive, I will be revenged on them."

Mildred stopped crying, as well as she could, to listen; but she felt
like Oliver when he said,--

"I don't know a word of what you mean."

"I dare say not. You foreigners never know anything like other people."

"But won't you tell us? Who made this flood?"

"To be sure, you weren't meant to know this. It would not have done to
show you the way out of the trap. Why--the Parliament Committee at
Lincoln ordered the Snow-sewer sluice to be pulled up to-day, to drown
the king's lands, and get rid of his tenants. It will be as good as a
battle gained to them."

The children were aghast at the wickedness of this deed. They would not
believe it. It would have been tyrannical and cruel to have obliged the
settlers, who were not interested in a quarrel between the king of
England and his people, to enlist, and be shot down in war. They would
have complained of this as tyrannical and cruel. But when they were
living in peace and quiet on their farms, paying their rents, and
inclined to show good-will to everybody, to pull up the flood-gates, and
let in the sea and the rivers to drown them because they lived in the
king's