Easy enough as it was for the vicar to give this order, it was a very different thing for Teddy, in spite of every desire on his part, to obey it; for, the moment he put down Puck on the leafy flooring of the raft, the dog began to howl, making him take it up again in his arms. To add to his troubles, also, he had dropped his sculling pole during a lurch of his floating platform, so he had nothing now wherewith to propel it either towards the island or back to the shore, the raft wickedly oscillating midway in the water between the two, like Mahomet’s coffin ’twixt heaven and earth!
Urged on, however, by his father’s command, Teddy tried as gallantly as any shipwrecked mariner to reach land again; but, what with Puck hampering his efforts, and his brisk movements on the frail structure, this all at once separated into its original elements through the clothes-line becoming untied, leaving Teddy struggling amidst the debris of broken rails and branches—Puck ungratefully abandoning his master in his extremity and making instinctively for the shore.
The vicar plunged in frantically to the rescue, wading out in the mud until he was nearly out of his depth, and then swimming up to Teddy, who, clutching a portion of his dismembered raft, had managed to keep afloat; although, he was glad enough when his father’s arm was round him and he found himself presently deposited on the bank in safety, where they were now alone, all the village boys having rushed off en masse, yelling out the alarm at the pitch of their voices the moment Teddy fell in and the vicar went after him.
Both were in a terrible pickle though, with their garments soaking wet, of course; while the vicar especially was bedraggled with mud from head to foot, looking the most unclerical object that could be well imagined. However, he took the whole matter good-humouredly enough, not scolding Teddy in the least.
“The best thing we can do, my son,” he said when he had somewhat recovered his breath, not having gone through such violent exercise for many a long day.—“The best thing we can do is to hurry off home as fast we can, so as to arrive there before they hear anything of the accident from other sources, or the girls will be terribly alarmed about us.”
Teddy, without speaking, tacitly assented to this plan by jumping up immediately and clutching hold of the shivering Puck, whose asthma, by the way, was not improved by this second involuntary ducking; and the two were hastening towards the vicarage when they heard a horse trotting behind them, Doctor Jolly riding up alongside before they had proceeded very far along the lane, after clambering out of the field where the pond was situated.
“Bless me!” cried the doctor; “why, here are you both safe and sound, when those village urchins said you and Master Teddy were drownded!”
“Ah! I thought these boys were up to something of the sort when they all scampered off in a batch without lending us a helping hand!” replied the vicar laughing. “I was just telling Teddy this, thinking the report would reach home before us.”
“Aye, all happen, Vernon? ’Pon my word, you’re in a fine mess!”
The vicar thereupon narrated all that had occurred, much to the doctor’s amusement.