They advanced. It was tentative and slow. They paused.
They came closer. Teddy brandished his club and reviled them in shrill screams. The dogs paused again. They crouched then. Cracker was in the lead. The boy hated Cracker. Cracker's white breast was touching the ice.
His head was thrust forward. His crest began to rise.
[CHAPTER XI]
In Which Teddy Brisk Gives the Strains of a Tight Cove Ballad to the North Wind, Billy Topsail Wins the Reward of Daring, Cracker Finds Himself in the Way of the Evil-Doer, and Teddy Brisk's Boast Makes Doctor Luke Laugh
Stripped down, at first, on the field, Billy Topsail would not yield to the cold. He did not shrink from the wind. He moved like a man all clothed. Nor would he yield to the shock of the water. He ignored it. It was heroic self-command. But he was the man for that—a Newfoundlander. He struck out precisely as though he had gone into the summer water of Ruddy Cove. If he relapsed from this attitude the cold would strike through him. A chill would momentarily paralyze his strength.
He was neither a strong nor a cunning swimmer. In this lapse he would go down and be choked beyond further effort before he could recover the use of his arms and legs. It was icy cold. He would not think of the cold. His best protection against it was the sufficient will to ignore it. The power would not long endure. It must endure until he had clambered out of the water to the little pan towards which he floundered. He was slow in the water. It seemed to him that his progress was mysteriously prolonged—that the wind was driving the pan away.
The wind could not rise to this pitch in a minute; but when he was midway of the lane he thought half an hour had elapsed—an hour—that he must have left the field and the boy far behind.