If water, though, had worked such ill to Puck, the example did not impress itself much on Teddy; for, despite his own previous peril, he was for ever getting himself into disgrace by going down to the river to catch sticklebacks against express injunctions to the contrary, when left alone for any length of time without an observant and controlling eye on his movements. He was also in the habit of joining the village boys at their aquatic pranks in the cattle-pond that occupied a prominent place in the meadows below Endleigh—just where the spur of one of the downs sloped before preparing for another rise, forming a hollow between the hills.
Here Master Teddy had loved to go on the sly, taking off his shoes and stockings and paddling about as the shoe and stockingless village urchins did; and this summer, not satisfied with simple paddling as of yore, he bethought himself of a great enterprise.
The pond was of considerable extent, and when it was swollen with rain, as happened at this period, the month of June being more plentiful than usual of moisture, its surface covered several acres, the water being very deep between its edge and the middle, where it shallowed again, the ground rising there and forming a sort of island that had actually an alder-tree growing on it.
Now, Teddy’s ambition was to explore this island, a thing none of the village boys had dreamed of, all being unable to swim; so, as the wished-for oasis could not be reached in that fashion, the next best thing to do was to build a boat like Robinson Crusoe and so get at it in that way.
As a preliminary, Teddy sounded the ex-sailor as to the best way of building a boat, without raising Jupp’s suspicions—for, the worthy porter, awed by the vicar’s reprimand anent the feu de joie affair and Mary’s continual exhortations, had of late exhibited a marked disinclination to assist him in doing anything which might lead him into mischief—artfully asking him what he would do if he could find no tree near at hand large enough that he could hollow out for the purpose; but, Jupp could give him no information beyond the fact that he must have a good sound piece of timber for the keel, and other pieces curved in a particular fashion for the strakes, and the outside planking would depend a good deal whether he wanted the boat clinker-built or smooth-sided.
“But how then,” asked Teddy—he could speak more plainly now than as a five-year old—“do people get off from ships when they have no boat?”
“Why, they builds a raft, sir,” answered Jupp.
“A raft—what is that?”
“Why, sir, it means anything that can swim,” replied Jupp, quite in his element when talking of the sea, and always ready to spin a yarn or tell what he knew. “It might be made of spare spars, or boards, or anything that can float. When I was in the Neptune off Terra del Faygo I’ve seed the natives there coming off to us seated on a couple of branches of a tree lashed together, leaves and all.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Teddy, rejoiced to hear this, the very hint he wanted; “but what did they do for oars?”