Two, or Three?
Godfrey had come to Waynflete Vicarage for a couple of nights, to make his final arrangements as to the timber. He was walking along the lane at the top of Flete Wood, in the dusk of this misty evening, when he heard an angry bark, and then a howl as of a dog in distress.
“That’s surely Rawdie,” he thought. “What can bring Guy down there?”
He hurried on to a point in the lane, where the fall of the ground made the river and the bridge visible, and looked down through the gathering dusk.
He saw figures on the bridge; whose, and how many he could not tell; but there was evidently a struggle in the middle. Was it a fight—or was one dragging or guiding the other? Were there two—or three? He gazed for a moment, puzzled and uncertain, then the bridge and the figures swung and reeled before his eyes, there was a noise of crashing timber, then a tremendous splash, and bridge and figures disappeared into the water.
Godfrey gave a great shout and call, as he sprang over the wall, and dashed headlong down the slope, over rock and wood and thicket, till he came to the edge of the river.
The great pool under the bridge was all stirred and seething with broken timber. Godfrey could see nothing else at first; but in a moment he caught sight of something like a human form. He jumped into the water. It was hardly out of his depth; but the floating, cracking timber made the greatest caution needful, and it was a minute or two before he could grip the collar of the man seen, and drag him towards the shore. It was Jem Outhwaite, dripping, shaking, choking with water, not absolutely senseless, but quite unable to help himself, as only by the exertion of all his great strength, the powerful Godfrey managed to tug him towards a shallow place, and pull him ashore.
“Who else—who else?” gasped Godfrey, breathlessly; but Jem was quite incapable of speech, and only cried feebly.
Godfrey pushed him on to a safe place, and stepped again into the pool. The water was very cold, and the planks and rails of the bridge were drifting and knocking about in the current, so that Godfrey had to be most careful in the uncertain light to feel his way among the timbers as he waded through the water. As it was, he tore his clothes and bruised his shoulders. He turned towards the relics of the bridge, and there, caught in the timbers, lay Guy, face upwards, swaying with the swaying piles.
Godfrey pushed his way near, and got his arms round him; but he was afraid of bringing down the whole fabric by one incautious movement. He raised Guy’s head against his shoulder, when a voice close above him said, clearly—