Dexter winced slightly, but he bore the pain without a word, and began rowing as well as a boy does row who handles a scull for the first time in his life. And there he sat, gazing to right and left at the dark banks of the river, and the stars above and reflected below, as they went slowly on along the bends and reaches of the little river, everything looking strangely distorted and threatening to the boy’s unaccustomed eyes.
The exercise soon began to bring a general feeling of warmth to his chilled frame, and as the inward helplessness passed away it began to give place to an acute sense of fear, and his eyes wandered here and there in search of Sir James Danby, the doctor, and others more terrible, who would charge them with stealing the boat in spite of his protests and the money he had left behind.
And all the time to make his trip more pleasant he had to suffer from jarring blows upon the spine, given by the top of Bob’s oar.
In nearly every case this was intentional, and Bob chuckled to himself, as with the customary outburst of his class he began to abuse his companion.
“Why don’t yer mind and keep time!” he cried. “Who’s to row if you go on like that? I never see such a stoopid.”
“All right, Bob, I’ll mind,” said Dexter, with all the humility of an ignorance which kept him from knowing that as he was rowing stroke Bob should have taken his time from him.
The blows on the back had two good effects, however: they gratified Bob, who had the pleasure of tyrannising over and inflicting pain upon his comrade, while Dexter gained by the rapid increase of warmth, and was most likely saved from a chill and its accompanying fever.
Still that night trip was not pleasant, for when Bob was not grumbling about the regularity of Dexter’s stroke, he had fault to find as to his pulling too hard or not hard enough, and so sending the head of the boat toward the right or left bank of the stream. In addition, the young bully kept up a running fire of comment on his companion’s shortcomings.
“I never see such a mate,” he said. “No money and no clothes. I say,” he added at the end of one grumbling fit, “what made you want to run away!”
“I don’t know,” said Dexter sadly. “I suppose it was because you persuaded me.”