Peter acted with promptitude. He dropped his paddle, ran to the bows, and jumped. Except for his left leg he landed safely. His left leg he recovered from the water. But there was no catching the rope. It trailed submerged after the boat, and the boat with an exasperating leisureliness, with a movement that was barely perceptible, widened its distance from the bank.
For a time Peter’s mind wrestled with this problem. Should he try and find a stick that would reach the boat? Should he throw stones so as to bring it back in shore?
Or perhaps if he told some one that the boat was adrift?
He went up the steps to the towing-path. There was no one who looked at all helpful within sight. He watched the boat drift slowly for a time towards the middle of the stream. Then it seemed to be struck with an idea of going down to Maidenhead. He watched it recede and followed it slowly. When he saw some people afar off he tried to look as though he did not belong to the boat. He decided that presently somebody would appear rowing—whom he would ask to catch his boat for him. Then he would tow it back to its old position.
Presently Peter came to the white gate of a bungalow and considered the advisability of telling a busy gardener who was mowing a lawn, about the boat. But it was difficult to frame a suitable form of address.
Still further on a pleasant middle-aged woman who was trimming a privet hedge very carefully with garden shears, seemed a less terrible person to accost. Peter said to her modestly and self-forgetfully; “I think there’s a boat adrift down there.”
The middle-aged woman peered through her spectacles.
“Some one couldn’t have tied it up,” she said, and having looked at the boat with a quiet intelligence for some time she resumed her clipping.
Her behaviour did much to dispel Peter’s idea of calling in adult help.
When he looked again the boat had turned round. It had drifted out into the middle of the stream, and it seemed now to be travelling rather faster and to be rocking slightly. It was not going down towards the lock but away towards where a board said “Danger.” Danger. It was as if a cold hand was laid on Peter’s heart. He no longer wanted to find the man with the ample face and tell him that his boat was adrift. The sun had set, the light seemed to have gone out of things, and Peter had a feeling that it was long past tea-time. He wished now he had never seen the man with the ample face. Would he have to pay for the boat? Could he say he had never promised to mind it?