“O dear! I hope not!” cried Mildred, in a tone of despair. “What shall we do if he comes?”
“We must see that afterwards: we must save him first. Now for it!”
As Oliver spoke, the dog ducked, and came up again without Roger, swimming lightly to the bank, and leaping ashore with a bark. Roger was there, however,—very near, but they supposed, exhausted, for he seemed to fall back, and sink, on catching hold of Oliver’s switch, and by the jerk twitched it out of the boy’s hand.
“Try again!” shouted Oliver, as he laid Mildred’s bramble along the water. “Don’t let go, Mildred.”
Mildred let the thorns run deep into her fingers without leaving her hold. Roger grasped the other end: and they pulled, without jerking, and with all their strength, till he reached the bank, and they could help him out with their hands.
“Oh, I am so glad you are safe, Roger!” said Oliver.
“You might have found something better than that thorny switch to throw me,” said Roger. “My hands are all blood with the spikes.”
“Look at hers!” cried Oliver, intending to show the state that his sister’s hands were in, for Roger’s sake; but Mildred pulled away her hands, and hid them behind her as she retreated, saying,—
“No, no. Never mind that now.”
Oliver saw how drenched the poor boy looked, and forgave whatever he might say. He asked Mildred to go back to the place where they had been standing, opposite the house; and he would come to her there presently. He then begged Roger to slip off his coat and trousers, that they might wring the wet out of them. He thought they would soon dry in the sun. But Roger pushed him away with his shoulder, and said he knew what he wanted;—he wanted to see what he had got about him. He would knock anybody down who touched his pockets. It was plain that Roger did not choose to be helped in any way; so Oliver soon ran off, and joined Mildred, as he had promised.