“You did not know then what you know now. Surely, Dexter, you will never be so cruel again.”
“If you don’t want me to, I won’t,” he said quickly.
“Ah, but I want you to be frank and manly for a higher motive than that, Dexter,” she said, laying her hand upon his shoulder. “There, I will not say any more now. What are you going to do!”
“Put him in the river, and let him swim away.”
The boy darted to the side of the rippling stream, stooped down, and lowered the hand containing the frog into the water, opened it, and for a moment or two the half-dead reptile sat there motionless. Then there was a vigorous kick, and it shot off into the clear water, diving right down among the water weeds, and disappearing from their view.
“There!” said Dexter, jumping up and looking relieved. “You are not cross with me now!”
“I have not been cross with you,” she said; “only a little grieved.”
“Couldn’t he swim!” cried the boy, who was anxious to turn the conversation. “I can swim like that, and dive too. We learned in our great bath, and— Oh, I say, hark at the bullocks.”
Helen listened, and could hear a low, muttering bellow in the next meadow, accompanied by the dull sounds of galloping hoofs, which were near enough to make the earth of the low, marshy bottom through which the river ran quiver slightly where they stood.
Just then there was a piercing shriek, as of a woman in peril, and directly after a man’s voice heard shouting for help.