Quicksilver: The Boy With No Skid to His Wheel

by George Manville Fenn

This had the required effect, and the head swung round once more; but in obtaining this result Dexter found himself in this position—the willow refused to give up its hold of the boat-hook. He naturally, on his side, also refused, and, to make matters worse, the current here was quite a race, and the boat was going rapidly on.

He was within an ace of having to leave the boat-hook behind, for he declined to try another bath—this time in his clothes. Just, however, at the crucial moment the bark of the willow gave way, the hook descended with a splash, and Dexter breathed more freely, and sat there with the boat-hook across his knees looking first to right and then to left in search of danger, but seeing nothing but the low-wooded banks of the stream, which was gradually growing wider as they travelled further from the town.

It was a strange experience; and, comparatively happy now in the silence of the night, Dexter kept his lonely watch, thinking how much pleasanter it was for his companion to be asleep, but all the time suffering a peculiar sensation of loneliness, and gazing wonderingly at the strange, dark shapes which he approached.

Men, huge beasts, strange monsters, they seemed sometimes right in front, rising from the river, apparently as if to bar his way, but always proving to be tree, bush, or stump, and their position caused by the bending of the stream.

Once there was a sudden short and peculiar grating, and the boat stopped short, but only to glide on again as he realised that the river was shallow there, and they had touched the clean-washed gravelly bottom.

There was enough excitement now he was left to himself to keep off the depression he had felt, for now the feeling that he was gliding away into a new life was made more impressive by the movement of the boat, which seemed to him to go faster and faster among dimly seen trees, and always over a glistening path that seemed to be paved with stars.

Once, and once only, after leaving the town behind was there any sign of inhabited building, and that was about an hour after they started, when a faint gleam seemed to be burning steadily on the bank, and so near that the light shone down upon the water. But that was soon passed, and the river ran wandering on through a wild and open district, where the only inhabitants were the few shepherds who attended the flocks.

On still, and on, among the low meadows, through which the river had cut its way in bygone times. Serpentine hardly expressed its course, for it so often turned and doubled back over the ground it had passed before; but still it, on the whole, flowed rapidly, and by slow degrees mile after mile was placed between the boys and the town. Twice over a curious sensation of drowsiness came upon Dexter, and he found himself hard at work trying to hunt out some of his pets, which seemed to him to have gone into the most extraordinary places.

For instance, Sam the toad had worked himself down into the very toe of the stocking he had been obliged to take off when he went into the water, and the more he tried to shake it out, the more tightly it clung with its little hands.

Then he woke with a start, and found out that he had dozed off.