“I beg pardon, sir,” said Laud, “but I did not know you.”
“My son went down the river in a boat some three or four hours since, and I fear he is lost,” said Mr. Cobbold.
“I came up the river as far as I could, and have seen no boat. The floats of ice were so troublesome, that I resolved to come ashore, and walk to Ipswich. Had there been a boat between Harwich and the Nacton shore, I must have seen it. I landed close by Cowhall, and I know there was no boat on the river, at least so far.”
At that moment they thought they heard some one call. They listened, and plainly heard the men hallooing from the boat.
“Ahoy! Ahoy!" called out Will Laud.
They then listened again, and recognized the voice of Richard Lee, one of the brewing-men, who called out,—
“We have found the boat, but no one in her.”
“Aye, sir,” said Will Laud, “then the young gentleman has got ashore!”
“I fear not!" said the father; “I fear he is lost!”
Laud feared the same, when he heard that the young lad had taken no mud-splashers with him: “But,” he added, “if the youth knew the river, he would get out of his boat, and walk by the edge of the channel till he came to this hardware, and then he might get ashore.”