The Rosery Folk Part 12

"The place is like one seen in some vision of the night," said Prayle softly.

"Hah! yes," exclaimed the doctor thoughtfully; "it is enough to tempt a man to give up town."

"Do, old fellow, and you shall have us Impatients," cried Scarlett, "We never want a doctor, and I hope we never shall."

"Amen to that!" said Scales, in a low, serious tone. "Ah!" he continued, "what a pity it seems that we have so few of these heavenly days."

"Oh, I don't know," said Scarlett. "Makes us appreciate them all the more."

"I think these things are best as they are," said Prayle in his soft dreamy tenor. "Yes; all is for the best."

Lady Scarlett looked at him uneasily, and Aunt Sophia tightened her lips.

"I should like to duck that fellow, and fish him out with the boat-hook," thought the doctor.

Then the conversation ceased. Words seemed to be a trouble in the beauty of that evening scene, one so imprinted in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the spectators that it was never forgotten. The boat was kept from floating down with the quick racing current by a sharp dip of the oars just given now and then, while every touch of the long blue blades seemed to be into liquid gold and silver and ruddy gems. The wind had sunk, and, saving the occasional distance--softened lowing from the meads, no sound came from the sh.o.r.e; but always like distant thunder, heard upon the summer breeze, came the never-ceasing, low-pitched roar of the falling water at the weir.

The silence was at last broken by Scarlett, who said suddenly, making his hearers start: "Now then, Jack, one row round by the piles, and then home."

"Right," said the doctor, throwing the end of his cigar into the water, where it fell with a hiss; and bending to his oar, the light gig was sent up against the racing water nearer and nearer to the weir.

The ladies joined hands, as if there was danger, but became rea.s.sured as they saw their protectors smile; and soon after, quite near to where the river came thundering down from where it was six feet above their heads, instead of the stream forcing them away, the water seemed comparatively still, the eddy setting slightly towards the weir.

"Here's one of the deep places," said Scarlett. "I fished here once, and my plummet went down over twenty feet."

"And you didn't catch a gudgeon?" said the doctor.

"Not one," replied Scarlett.

"How deep and black it looks!" said Prayle softly, as he laved one soft white hand in the water.

"Enough to make it," said Scarlett--"deep as that. I say, what a place for a header!"

"Ah, splendid!" said the doctor; "only, you mustn't dive onto pile or stone. I say, hadn't we better keep off a little more?"

"Yes," said Scarlett, rising, oar in hand. "I never knew the eddy set in so sharply before.--Why, auntie, if we went much nearer, it would carry us right in beneath the falling water, and we should be filled."

"Pray, take care, James."

"To be sure I will, my dear auntie," he said, as he stood up there in the soft evening light, "I'll take care of you all, my precious freight;" and wailing his time, he thrust the blade of his oar against a pile, placed one foot upon the gunwale, and pressing heavily, he sent the boat steadily farther and farther away, "Back water, Jack," he said.--"Now!" As he spoke, he gave one more thrust; but in the act there was a sharp crack as the frail ashen oar snapped in twain, a shriek of horror from Lady Scarlett as she started up, and a dull, heavy plunge, making the water foam up, as Sir James Scarlett went in head foremost and disappeared.

Volume 1, Chapter XI.

THE DOCTOR ABROAD.

The thrust delivered by Scarlett before the breaking of the oar, aided by the impetus given by his feet as he fell, sent the boat back into the rapid stream beyond the eddy; and in spite of the doctor's efforts, he could not check its course, till, suddenly starting up, he used his oar as a pole, arresting their downward course as he scanned the surface towards the piles.

"Sit down, Lady Scarlett!" he cried in a fierce, hoa.r.s.e voice.--"Hold her, or she will be over."

Aunt Sophia had already seized her niece's dress, and was dragging her back, the three women sitting with blanched faces and parted ashy lips, gazing at the place where Scarlett had gone down.

"Don't be alarmed; he swims like a fish," said the doctor, though grave apprehension was changing the hue of his own countenance, as he stood watching for the reappearance of his friend.

"Help! help!" cried Lady Scarlett suddenly; and her voice went echoing over the water.

"Hush! be calm," cried the doctor.--"Here, quick--you--Mr Prayle! Come and shove down the boat-hook here. She's drifting. Mind, man, mind!"

he cried, as Prayle, trembling visibly, nearly fell over as he stooped to get out the boat-hook.

He thrust it down into the water, but in a timid, helpless way.

"Put it down!" cried the doctor; and then, seizing an oar by the middle, he used it as a paddle, just managing to keep the boat from being swept away.

They were twenty yards at least from where Scarlett went down: but had he possessed the power to urge the boat forward, Scales dared not have sent it nearer to the piles with that freight on board. And still those terrible moments went on, lengthening first into one and then into a second minute, and Scarlett did not reappear.

"Why does he not come up?" said Prayle, in a harsh whisper.

"Silence, man! Wait!" cried the doctor hoa.r.s.ely, as he saw Lady Scarlett's wild imploring eyes.

"He must have struck his head against a stone or pile," thought the doctor, "and is stunned." And then the horrible idea came upon him, that his poor friend was being kept down by the tons and tons of falling water, every time he would have risen to the top. Two minutes--three minutes had pa.s.sed, and, as if in sympathy with the horror that had fallen upon the group, the noise of the tumbling waters seemed to grow more loud, and the orange glow of sunset was giving place to a cold grey light.

Aunt Sophia was the next to speak. "Do something, man!" she cried, in a pa.s.sionate imploring voice. But the doctor did not heed; he only scanned the surface of the foamy pool.

"There, there, there!" shrieked Lady Scarlett. "There, help!--James!

Husband! Help!"

She would have flung herself from the boat, as she gazed wildly in quite a different direction; and the doctor, dropping the oar across the sides, sent the frail vessel back from him, rocking heavily; for he had plunged from it headlong into the rushing water, but only to rise directly; and they saw him swimming rapidly towards where something creamy-looking was being slowly carried by the current back towards the piles. The doctor was a powerful swimmer, but he was weary from his exertions. He swam on, though, rapidly nearing the object of his search, caught it by the flannel shirt, made a tremendous effort to get beyond the back-set of the current, and then turned a ghastly face upward to the air.

The gig was fifty yards away now, Prayle being helpless to stay its course; and though the doctor looked round, there was neither soul nor boat in sight to give them help.

It was a hard fight; but the swimmer won; for some thirty or forty strokes, given with all his might, brought him into the shallow stream, and then the rest was easy; he had but to keep his friend's face above the water while he tried to overtake the boat. For a moment he thought of landing; but no help was near without carrying his inanimate burden perhaps a mile, the lock being on the other side, its keeper probably asleep, for he made no sign.

"Cannot that idiot stop the boat?" groaned Scales. "At last--at last!"

He uttered these words with a cry of satisfaction, for Prayle was making some pretence of forcing the boat up-stream once more.

The doctor was skilful enough to direct his course so that they were swept down to the bows; and grasping the gunwale with one hand, he panted forth: "Down with that boat-hook! Now, take him by the shoulders. Lean back to the other side and draw him in."

The swimmer could lend but little help; and Prayle would have failed in his effort, and probably overturned the boat, but for Aunt Sophia, whose dread of the water seemed to have pa.s.sed away as she came forward, and between them they dragged Scarlett over the side.

The doctor followed, with the water streaming from him, and gave a glance to right and left in search of a place to land.

"It would be no use," he said quickly. "While we were getting him to some house, valuable minutes would be gone.--Now, Lady Scarlett, for heaven's sake, be calm!"

"Oh, he is dead--he is dead!" moaned the wretched woman, on her knees.

"That's more than you know, or I know," cried the doctor, who was working busily all the time. "Be calm, and help me.--You too, Miss Raleigh.--Prayle, get out of the way!"

Arthur Prayle frowned and went aft. Lady Scarlett made a supreme effort to be calm; while Aunt Sophia, with her lips pressed lightly together, knelt there, watchful and ready, as the doctor toiled on. She it was who, unasked, pa.s.sed him the cushions which he laid beneath the apparently drowned man, and, at a word, was the first to strip away the coverings from his feet and apply friction, while Scales was hard at work trying to produce artificial respiration by movements of his patient's arms.

"Don't be down-hearted," he said; "only work. We want warmth and friction to induce the circulation to return. Throw plenty of hope into your efforts, and, with G.o.d's help, we'll have him back to life."