“Unlucky!” said Guy, as Godfrey went to show the old manager out, and left him alone with Staunton. “I can but wonder at my great good fortune. I was so sure that I was going to my death, that my life was the price I had to pay, that I can’t believe that I shall live; that I’ve come off scot-free for a ducking—so far.”
“Why, my dear boy, it was touch and go,” said Cuthbert.
“Ay. It was so queer to feel no contact myself with the terror, and to see poor Jem in the throes of the struggle. And he put me back, and went to face him first.” Here Guy faltered, and almost broke down. “He won the battle. But then, on the bridge—you’ll say I was faint, and felt the dead weight of Jem—there was nothing; but, well—people talk of the powers of the air. I could not stir—an inch. Then Jem yelled out, and I got loose, and the bridge cracked—no wonder!—I woke up here by degrees. I knew when you came and held my hand, and when Rawdie licked my face; but I couldn’t do a thing. I had to stop. And now to be alive—and alone!”
“Thank God, my boy, it’s all over.”
“Yes, I thank God,” said Guy. Then he added, quietly, “It doesn’t matter how much of it has been what you call natural, or what caused the horror that poor Jem burlesqued. I had to fight. It’s true enough—all temptations are common to man. I might have been as he is. Now, Cuthbert, let the rest be silence. I shall never speak of these things again. Believe me, they are all over. But, a thousand times I thank you.”
He looked up, and Cuthbert saw the conflict and the victory, both in his face.
The shadow, if shadow it could be called, was the fading out of life of poor Jem Outhwaite. Less ill at first than Guy, he had no vitality to resist the shock and chill he had received. He had one word more to say about the crossing of the bridge, when his poor feeble soul had put forth its one flower of courage, and he had tried to take the post of danger.
“Ay, sir,” he said, in his cracked voice, to all the vicar’s words of comfort and hope.
But, when Guy came at the very last to see him, he looked up in his face with a smile that was not foolish, and said—
“We thrawed t’ owd gen’leman in to t’ watter, not he we.”