Teddy Part 6

CHAPTER SIX.

THE POND IN THE MEADOW.

Not a trace of the boy could be seen anywhere.

The cause of the explosion was apparent enough; for, the little wooden box on which Jupp had mounted the toy cannons, lashing them down firmly, and securing them with breechings in sailor-fashion, to prevent their kicking when fired, had been overturned, and a jug that he had brought out from the house containing water to damp the fuse with, was smashed to atoms, while of the box of matches and the bag of powder only a few smouldering fragments remained--a round hole burned in the gra.s.s near telling, if further proof were needed, that in his eagerness to start the salute, Master Teddy, impatient as usual, had struck a light to ignite the train, and this, accidentally communicating with the bag of powder, had resulted in a grand flare-up of the whole contents.

This could be readily reasoned out at a glance; but, where could Teddy be, the striker of the match, the inceptor of all the mischief?

Jupp could not imagine; hunt high, hunt low, as he might and did.

At first, he thought that the young iconoclast, as nothing could be perceived of him on the lawn or flower-beds, had been blown up in the air over the laurel hedge and into the lane; as, however, nothing could be discovered of him here, either, after the most careful search, this theory had to be abandoned, and Jupp was fairly puzzled.

Teddy had completely vanished!

It was very strange, for his sisters had seen him on the spot the moment before the explosion.

Mary, of course, had followed Jupp round to the front of the house, while the little girls came out on to the lawn; and Molly the cook, as well as Joe the gardener, attracted by the commotion, had also been a.s.sisting in the quest for the missing Teddy, prying into every hole and corner.

But all their exertions were in vain; and there they stood in wondering astonishment.

"P'aps," suggested Cissy, "he's done upstairs?"

"Nonsense, child!" said Conny decisively; "we would have seen him from the window if he had come in."

"Still, we'd better look, miss," observed Mary, who was all pale and trembling with anxiety as to the safety of her special charge. "He may have been frightened and rushed to the nursery to hide himself, as he has done before when he has been up to something!"

So saying, she hurried into the pa.s.sage, and the rest after her.

It was of no use looking into the drawing-room or kitchen, the little girls having been in the former apartment all the time, and Molly in the latter; but the parlour was investigated unsuccessfully, and every nook and cranny of the study, a favourite play-ground of the children when the vicar was out, as he happened to be this evening, fortunately or unfortunately as the case might be, visiting the poor of his parish.

Still, there was not a trace of Teddy to be found.

The search was then continued upstairs amongst the bed-rooms by Mary and Molly, accompanied by the three little girls, who marched behind their elders in silent awe, Jupp and Joe remaining down in the hall and listening breathlessly for some announcement to come presently from above.

The nursery disclosed nothing, neither did the children's sleeping room, nor the vicar's chamber, although the beds were turned up and turned down and looked under, and every cupboard and closet inspected as cautiously as if burglars were about the premises; and Mary was about to give up the pursuit as hopeless, when all at once, she thought she heard the sound of a stifled sob proceeding from a large oak wardrobe in the corner of the spare bed-room opposite the nursery, which had been left to the last, and where the searchers were all now a.s.sembled.

"Listen!" she exclaimed in a whisper, holding up her finger to enjoin attention; whereupon Cissy and Liz stopped shuffling their feet about, and a silence ensued in which a pin might have been heard to drop.

Then, the noise of the stifled sobs that had at first attracted Mary's notice grew louder, and all could hear Teddy's voice between the sobs, muttering or repeating something at intervals to himself.

"I do believe he's saying his prayers!" said Mary, approaching the wardrobe more closely with stealthy steps, so as not to alarm the little stowaway, a smile of satisfaction at having at last found him crossing her face, mingled with an expression of amazement--"Just hear what he is repeating. Hush!"

They all listened; and this was what they heard proceeding from within the wardrobe, a sob coming in as a sort of hyphen between each word of the little fellow's prayer.

"Dod--bess pa--an' Conny an' Liz--an' 'ittle Ciss--an' Jupp, de porter man, an' Mary--an'--an'--all de oders--an' make me dood boy--an' I'll neber do it again, amen!"

"The little darling!" cried Mary, opening the door of the wardrobe when Teddy had got so far, and was just beginning all over again; but the moment she saw within, she started back with a scream which at once brought Jupp upstairs. Joe the gardener still stopped, however, on the mat below in the pa.s.sage, as nothing short of a peremptory command from the vicar would have constrained him to put his heavy clod-hopping boots on the soft stair-carpet. Indeed, it had needed all Mary's persuasion to make him come into the hall, which he did as gingerly as a cat treading on a hot griddle!

As Jupp could see for himself, when he came up to the group a.s.sembled round the open door of the wardrobe there was nothing in the appearance of poor Teddy to frighten Mary, although much to bespeak her pity and sympathy--the little fellow as he knelt down in the corner showing an upturned face that had been blistered by the gunpowder as it exploded, besides being swollen to more than twice its ordinary size. His clothing was also singed and blackened like that of any sweep, while his eyelashes, eyebrows, and front hair had all been burnt off, leaving him as bare as a coot.

Altogether, Master Teddy presented a very sorry spectacle; and the little girls all burst into tears as they looked at him, even Jupp pa.s.sing his coat-sleeve over his eyes, and muttering something about its being "a bad job" in a very choky sort of voice.

It was but the work of an instant, however, for Mary to take up the unfortunate sufferer in her arms, and there he sobbed out all his woes as she cried over him on her way to the nursery, sending off Jupp promptly for the doctor.

"I'se not do nuzzin," explained Teddy as he was being undressed, and his burns dressed with oil and cotton-wool, pending the arrival of medical advice. "I'se only zust light de match an' den dere was a whiz; an' a great big black ting lift me up an' trow me down, and den I climb up out of de smoke an' run 'way here. I was 'fraid of black ting comin' an'

hide!"

"There was no black thing after you, child," said Conny. "It was only the force of the explosion that knocked you down, and the cloud of smoke you saw, which hid you from us when you ran indoors."

"It was a black ting," repeated Teddy, unconvinced by the wise Miss Conny's reasoning. "I see him, a big black giant, same as de jinny in story of de fairies; but I ran 'way quick!"

"All right, dear! never mind what it was now," said Mary soothingly.

"Do you feel any better now?"

"Poor mou's so sore," he whimpered, "an' 'ittle nosey can't breez!"

"Well, you shouldn't go meddling with matches and fire, as I've told you often," said Mary, pointing her moral rather inopportunely. Still she patted and consoled the little chap as much as she could; and when Doctor Jolly came up from Endleigh presently, he said that she had done everything that was proper for the patient, only suggesting that his face might be covered during the night with a piece of soft rag dipped in Goulard water, so as to ease the pain of the brows and let the little sufferer sleep.

The vicar did not return home until some time after the doctor had left the house and Jupp gone back to his duties at the railway-station; but although all traces of the explosion had been removed from the lawn and the gra.s.s smoothed over by Joe the gardener, he knew before being told that something had happened from the unusual stillness around, both without and within doors, the little girls being as quiet as mice, and Teddy, the general purveyor of news and noise, being not to the fore as usual.

It was not long before he found out all about the accident; when there was a grand to-do, as may be expected, Mr Vernon expressing himself very strongly anent the fact of Jupp putting such a dangerous thing as gunpowder within reach of the young scapegrace, and scolding Mary for not looking after her charge better.

Jupp, too, got another "blowing up" from the station-master for being behind time. So, what with the general upset, and the dilapidated appearance of Master Teddy, with his face like a boiled vegetable marrow, when the bandages had been removed from his head and he was allowed to get up and walk about again, the celebration of the Queen's Birthday was a black day for weeks afterwards in the chronicles of the vicar's household!

During the rest of the year, however, and indeed up to his eighth year, the course of Teddy's life was uneventful as far as any leading incident was concerned.

Of course, he got into various little sc.r.a.pes, especially on those occasions when his grandmother paid her periodic visits to the vicarage, for the old lady spoiled him dreadfully, undoing in a fortnight all that Mary had effected by months of careful teaching and training in the way of obedience and manners; but, beyond these incidental episodes, he did not distinguish himself by doing anything out of the common.

Teddy leisurely pursued that uneven tenor of way customary to boys of his age, exhibiting a marked preference for play over lessons, and becoming a great adept at field sports through Jupp's kindly tuition, albeit poor Puck was no longer able to a.s.sist him in hunting rabbits, the little dog having become afflicted with chronic asthma ever since his immersion in the river when he himself had so narrowly escaped from drowning.

If water, though, had worked such ill to Puck, the example did not impress itself much on Teddy; for, despite his own previous peril, he was for ever getting himself into disgrace by going down to the river to catch sticklebacks against express injunctions to the contrary, when left alone for any length of time without an observant and controlling eye on his movements. He was also in the habit of joining the village boys at their aquatic pranks in the cattle-pond that occupied a prominent place in the meadows below Endleigh--just where the spur of one of the downs sloped before preparing for another rise, forming a hollow between the hills.

Here Master Teddy had loved to go on the sly, taking off his shoes and stockings and paddling about as the shoe and stockingless village urchins did; and this summer, not satisfied with simple paddling as of yore, he bethought himself of a great enterprise.

The pond was of considerable extent, and when it was swollen with rain, as happened at this period, the month of June being more plentiful than usual of moisture, its surface covered several acres, the water being very deep between its edge and the middle, where it shallowed again, the ground rising there and forming a sort of island that had actually an alder-tree growing on it.

Now, Teddy's ambition was to explore this island, a thing none of the village boys had dreamed of, all being unable to swim; so, as the wished-for oasis could not be reached in that fashion, the next best thing to do was to build a boat like Robinson Crusoe and so get at it in that way.

As a preliminary, Teddy sounded the ex-sailor as to the best way of building a boat, without raising Jupp's suspicions--for, the worthy porter, awed by the vicar's reprimand anent the _feu de joie_ affair and Mary's continual exhortations, had of late exhibited a marked disinclination to a.s.sist him in doing anything which might lead him into mischief--artfully asking him what he would do if he could find no tree near at hand large enough that he could hollow out for the purpose; but, Jupp could give him no information beyond the fact that he must have a good sound piece of timber for the keel, and other pieces curved in a particular fashion for the strakes, and the outside planking would depend a good deal whether he wanted the boat clinker-built or smooth- sided.

"But how then," asked Teddy--he could speak more plainly now than as a five-year old--"do people get off from ships when they have no boat?"

"Why, they builds a raft, sir," answered Jupp.

"A raft--what is that?"