Chapter Five.
Blown Up.
“Well, I never!” panted out Jupp as he raced down the incline at a headlong speed towards the spot where he had seen Teddy disappear, and whence had come his choking cry of alarm and the splash he made as he fell into the water. “The b’y’ll be drownded ’fore I can reach him!”
But, such was his haste, that, at the same instant in which he uttered these words—more to himself than for anyone else’s benefit, although he spoke aloud—the osiers at the foot of the slope parted on either side before the impetuous rush of his body, giving him a momentary glimpse of the river, with Teddy’s clutching fingers appearing just above the surface and vainly appealing for help as he was sinking for the second time; so, without pausing, the velocity he had gained in his run down the declivity carrying him on almost in spite of himself, Jupp took a magnificent header off the bank. Then,—rising after his plunge, with a couple of powerful strokes he reached the unconscious boy, whose struggles had now ceased from exhaustion, and, gripping fast hold of one of his little arms, he towed him ashore.
Another second and Jupp would have been too late, Teddy’s nearly lifeless little form having already been caught in the whirling eddy of the mill-race. Even as it was, the force of the on-sweeping current was so great that it taxed all Jupp’s powers to the utmost to withstand being carried over the weir as he made for the side slanting-wise, so as not to weary himself out uselessly by trying to fight against the full strength of the stream, which, swollen with the rains of April, was resistless in its flow and volume.
Swimming on his side, however, and striking out grandly, Jupp succeeded at length in vanquishing the current, or rather made it serve his purpose; and, presently, grasping hold of the branch of an alder that hung over the river at the point of the bend, he drew himself up on the bank with one hand, holding poor Teddy still with the other, to find himself at the same moment confronted by Nurse Mary, with Cissy and Liz, who had all hurried down the slope to the scene of the disaster.
“Oh, dear! oh, dear!—he’s dead, he’s dead!” wailed Mary, taking the little fellow from Jupp and lifting him up in her arms, preparing to start off at a run for the vicarage, while the little girls burst into a torrent of tears.
“You just bide there!” said Jupp, preventing her from moving, and looking like a giant Triton, all dripping with water, as he stepped forward. “You just bide there!”
“But he’ll die if something’s not done at once to restore him,” expostulated Mary, vainly trying to get away from the other’s restraining hold.
“So he might, if you took him all that long way ’fore doin’ anything,” replied Jupp grimly. “You gie him to me; I knows what’s best to be done. I’ve seed chaps drounded afore aboard ship, and brought to life ag’in by using the proper methods to git back the circularation, as our doctor in the Neptune used to call it. You gie him to me!”