Clement submitted, clearly unable to resist, and sat down by Anna, who had her brother in her arms, rubbing his hands and warming them, caressing him, and asking him how he felt, to which the only answer she got was—
“It was beastly. I have my mouth awfully full of water still.”
Clement made a low murmur of thanksgiving, and Anna, looking up, was startled to see how white and helpless he was. The way was happily very short, but he had so nearly fainted that Gerald, hurrying on faster uphill than the horse to reassure his aunt, lifted him out, not far from insensible, and carried him with Sibby’s help to his bed in the room on the ground-floor, where the remedies were close at hand, Geraldine and nurse anxiously administering them; when the first sign of revival he gave was pointing to Gerald’s dripping condition, and signing to him to go and take care of himself.
“All right, yes, boys and all! All right Cherie.”
And he went, swallowing down the glass of stimulant which his aunt turned from her other patient for a moment to administer, but she was much too anxious about Clement to have thought for any one else, for truly it did seem likely that he would be the chief sufferer from the catastrophe.
Little Davy’s adventure, as he had lost no clothes, made no more impression on his parents than if he had been an amphibious animal or a water dog, and when Fergus came out of Beechwood Cottage after having changed the few clothes he had retained, and had a good meal, to be driven home with his uncle in the dog-cart, his constant henchman was found watching for news of him at the gate.
“Please, sir, I think we’ll find your aralia next spring-tide.”
Whereupon General Mohun told him he was a good little chap, and presented him with a half-crown, the largest sum he had ever possessed in his life.
Fergus did not come off quite so well, for when the story had been told, though his mother had trembled and shed tears of thankfulness as she kissed him, and his sisters sprang at him and devoured him, while all the time he bemoaned his piece of the stump of an aralia, and a bit of cone of a pinus, and other treasures to which imaginative regret lent such an aid, that no doubt he would believe the lost contents of his bag to have been the most precious articles that he had ever collected; his father, however, took him into his study.
“Fergus,” he said gravely, “this is the second time your ardour upon your pursuits has caused danger and inconvenience to other people, this time to yourself too.”