Summoning all my remaining energies I gave a pitiful choked squeak, a feeble attempt at the cry I used to call him with in the long-gone days at the Hall.
‘What! No, it can’t be! It’s absurd! And yet’—Jack’s voice rose to a shout—‘by Jove, it is Nipper!’ I felt his hand round me, his touch as gentle as ever. ‘You poor little chap, how did you come here? And stuck tight, too! Never mind, poor old Nipper boy. I’ll get you out all right. Just wait a jiffy.’
Out came his knife, and with the utmost gentleness he cut the wood away all round. In another minute I was free, and safe in his hand.
‘What, hurt, old chap? I must get it out.’ With wonderful tenderness and deftness he pulled out the sharp splinter. ‘There, it’s not much. Only a skin wound. How in the name of all that’s wonderful, did you come here, half a county away from the Hall?’
As he spoke he slipped me into the pocket of his Norfolk jacket and dropped quickly out of the tree.
When he took me out again we were in the terraced garden of the house which I had seen by the river. Jack ran up the drive and burst into the house, shouting at the top of his voice:
‘Harry, where are you?’
Next minute out ran his brother.
If ever I longed to be able to talk man-talk, then was the time! How astonished they all were, for Mabel and Mrs. Fortescue soon joined the boys, and were full of the same amazement at what they considered my strange and mysterious reappearance. I always wonder if they knew how much stranger I thought it at the time.