Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

by R. D. Blackmore

“What does he mean?” asked Gregory.

“Take my little knife,” said Mabel; “it cuts like a razor; but my hands shake.”

“I see, I see,” nodded the counsellor; and he cut the long traces of the leader, and knotted them together. Meanwhile Charlie let both feet sink, and stood edgewise in the rapid current, treading water quietly. Of course he was carried down stream as he did it; but slowly (compared with a floating body). And he found that the movement was much less rapid, at three or four feet from the surface. Before he had time to think of this, or fairly fetch his balance, the white thing he was waiting for came gliding in the blackness towards him. He flung out his arms at once, and cast his feet back, and made towards it. In the gliding hurry, and the flit of light, it passed him so far that he said “Good-bye,” and then (perhaps from the attraction of bodies) it seemed for a second to stop; and the hand he cast forth laid hold of something. His own head went under water, and he swallowed a good mouthful; but he stuck to what he had got hold of, as behoves an Englishman. Then he heard great shouting upon dry land, and it made him hold the tighter. “Bravo, my noble fellow!” He heard; he was getting a little tired; but encouragement is everything. “Catch it! catch it! lay hold! lay hold!” he heard in several voices, and he saw the splash of the traces thrown, but had no chance to lay hold of them. The power of the black stream swept him on, and he vainly strove for either bank; unless he would let loose his grasp, and he would rather drown with it than do that.

Now who saved him and his precious salvage? A poor, despised, and yet clever boy, whose only name was Bonny. When Gregory Lovejoy had lashed the Woeburn with his traces vainly, and Mabel had fixed her shawl to the end of them, and the tall man who followed the gig had dropped into the water quietly, and Bottler (disturbed by the shouting) had left his pigs and shone conspicuous—not one of them could have done a bit of good, if it had not been for Bonny. From no great valour on the part of the boy; but from a quick-witted suggestion.

His suggestion had to cross the water, as many good suggestions have to do; and but for Bottler’s knowledge of his voice, nobody would have noticed it.

“Ye’ll nab ’em down to bridge,” he cried; “hurn down to bridge, and ee’ll nab ’em. Tell ’un not to faight so.”

“Let your’sen go with the strame,” shouted Bottler to the gallant Charlie; “no use faighting for the bank. There’s a tree as crosseth down below; and us’ll pull’ee both out, when ’a gets there.”

Charlie had his head well up, and saw the wisdom of this counsel. He knew by long battle that he could do nothing against the tenor of the Woeburn, and the man who had leaped in to help him, brave and strong as he was, could only follow as the water listed. The water went at one set pace, and swimmers only floated. And now it was a breathless race for the people on the dry land to gain the long tree that spanned the Woeburn, ere its victims were carried under. And but for sailor Lovejoy’s skill, and presence of mind, in seeking downward, and paddling more than swimming, the swift stream would have been first at the bridge; and then no other chance for them.

As it was, the runners were just in time, with scarcely a second to spare for it. Three men knelt on the trunk of the tree, while Mabel knelt in the snow, and prayed. The merciless stream was a fathom below them; but they hung the staunch traces in two broad loops, made good at each end in a fork of bough, and they showed him where they were by flipping the surface of the water.

Clinging to his helpless burden still, and doing his best to support it, the young sailor managed to grasp the leather; but his strength was spent, and he could not rise, and all things swam around him; the snowy banks, the eager faces, the white form he held, and the swift black current—all like a vision swept through his brain, and might sweep on for ever. His wits were gone, and he must have followed, and been swept away to another world, if a powerful swimmer had not dashed up in full command of all faculties. The tall man, whom nobody had heeded in the rush and hurry, came down the black gorge with his head well up, and the speed and strength of an osprey. He seized the broad traces with such a grasp that the timber above them trembled, and he bore himself up with his chest to the stream, and tearing off his neckcloth, fastened first the drowned white figure, and then poor Charlie, to the loop of the strap, and saw them drawn up together; then gathering all his remaining powers, he struck for the bank, and gained it.