I do not know just how we rolled or fell, but we were in the water. I had managed still to hold Ellen Trethewy with my right arm, and with my left hand to catch the edge of the footbridge. I could not by any effort have pulled us both out or raised her on to the bridge, but it was easy to hold our heads above water, for we were against the pier of the bridge, in between the two currents that shot under the arches. Mrs. Trethewy would be there in a moment and could help us out; or—why did not that old rustic help us?
They say that men in moments of extreme peril take in all manner of things with extraordinary rapidity, but I do not know whether I really saw all as I see it in memory now, or whether what I did was from accident and the instinct of fear.
I glanced up, and the old rustic stood over us raising a mighty stick which I thought was not unlike that which Vane-Cartwright had carried in the morning. So much I did see and think.
One good blow and I should have been stunned, if my brains were not out. Whether we got entangled in the eel grating or were carried right under the fish-house into the pool, there was little chance for either of our lives if that blow had fallen where it was aimed.
I let go my hold on the bridge and threw my head back, and the stick crashed idly on the bricks of the margin. I tried to get one long breath before we went under, but I swallowed a horrible gulp of water. Good chance or my convulsive effort guided us into the arch for which I would have steered. Under one arch the old eel grating remained. I did not know its structure, and I did not know whether the trap-door over it was fastened down, but there was little hope that we should pass that way alive. Under the other arch, as I had found that morning, the grating had long been removed, and down that archway the strong stream was carrying us, safe, if it did not throttle us on the way. How long a passage I thought it, though the rush of the water seemed so headlong. I could feel the slimy growth on the brick archway above us, and my nostrils were for a moment above water though my mouth was pressed under. Then we were under the floor of the fish-house, and my head rose and I got a gulp of air, but my head struck a joist of the floor, and the stream swept me on, ducking involuntarily under another joist and another. We were out in the pool, sucked down in the bubble and swirl of the eddy. I opened my eyes and could see the glare of the fire through great green globes of water. I was on the surface; I was swimming with great gasps; I was under again; I was exhausted. My feet struck on pebbles: I was standing in the shallow water. I still held the body. Was it lifeless? Three strides and I should land her on the bank. No, my steps sank in some two feet of almost liquid mud. The dragging of my steps furnished just the little further effort needed to spend my remaining breath. I sank forward on the reeds and flags of the margin, with one last endeavour to push her body in front of me, and I lay, helpless and panting horribly, beside her, while a man came and jumped into the marshy fringe of the pool and stood over us. That dire old rustic, I felt no doubt, and I felt no care. No, it was the girl’s father.
In the morning, shooting down that same dark cool avenue of sweet water, and swept without an effort far out into the swirling reed-fringed pool, I could not have imagined how hardly and how ill I was to pass that way again with a living or lifeless burden.
She lived; the first shock of the water had roused her, and she had kept a shut mouth, a steady grasp where it least incommoded me and a heroic presence of mind.
Chapter XIX
There is not much that can be done for a thatched cottage once well alight, and for such salvage as could be done there were plenty of ready helpers soon upon the scene. That aged rustic was not among them, nor did I afterwards see or hear of him; but among them before long appeared Vane-Cartwright himself, brisk and alert, and forward to proffer to Trethewy every sort of help and accommodation for his now homeless family. Trethewy’s response was characteristic—total and absolute silence.
It seemed late but was still early morning when I had the Trethewys assembled for breakfast in my private sitting-room in my inn. Neighbours had readily supplied the women with clothes, and a cart had been forthcoming to carry them. Trethewy and I walked to the inn together, and his attitude to Vane-Cartwright was naturally quite altered. He told me a second time of the dislike, which he had felt from the first, of being in Vane-Cartwright’s service, and he told me that he had just decided to accept a situation which was open to him in Canada, and had expected to sail with his family, who did not yet know it, in six weeks, but supposed he must put it off now.