Chapter 15

'NEARLY DROWNED.'

The winter was nearly over when a sudden sharp frost set in. Bobby and True were delighted to see the snow fall, and walk out when the pavements and roads were slippery with ice; and, when their father took them to the Serpentine to see the skating on the ice they were enchanted. Then, as the frost continued, he got them each a pair of skates, and gave them their first lessons in the art. He himself was a beautiful skater, as he had done a great deal of such sport in America; and then one Saturday he announced to them at breakfast that he should take them by train to a large piece of water in the country, and they should stay there the whole day.

'We will have a winter picnic; Margot must pack us up some sandwiches, and we shall not come back till dark.'

It was the first time he had proposed a whole day out, and the children were of course delighted.

As they were starting Mr. Allonby looked at his little son, who had skates in one hand, Nobbles in the other.

'I think you had better leave Nobbles at home, my boy; he will be in your way.'

'Oh, please let me take him! He would be so 'normously disappointed if I left him behind; he does love the country.'

Mr. Allonby laughed.

'Have your own way then.'

They set off in high spirits. Every bit of the day was a keen pleasure to them--the train journey, the walk from the station to the old country house belonging to Mr. Allonby's friend, and then the adjournment to the artificial lake in the park, where a large number of skaters were assembled. There were other children there who at once made friends with Bobby and True, and, when luncheon time came, they were asked to come up to the house. This, however, Mr. Allonby declined, and a few others besides themselves preferred to lunch on the banks of the bit of water.

'I like this much the best,' said Bobby, snuggling close to his father; 'it's as hot as fire, isn't it?'

His father looked at his rosy cheeks with content.

'I wish I could give you children an out-of-door country life,' he said; 'that's what you ought to have.'

'Yes,' said True; 'I don't like houses at all. I should like to be a gipsy!'

'When we grows up, father, we'll come over the sea with you, won't we? And couldn't we go to the North Pole and skate? Miss Robsart was telling us yesterday about the poor little fat Eskims--I forgets the name of them--who're in the dark so much. I should like to see them and the whales.'

'I should like the hot places best,' said True, 'where you lie in the sun, and monkeys and parrots swing in the trees above you, and you eat cocoanuts and dates!'

'Yes,' said Mr. Allonby; 'we'll do some travels together later if we're spared. But the North Pole would be a big order, Bobby; it has never been found yet.'

'I espec's God has got hold of it in His hand, and twists the world round with it,' said Bobby with knitted brows.

His father laughed.

'Finish your lunch, sonny, and we'll be moving; your theories are quite beyond me.'

So they took to the ice again, and Bobby flew here and there on his skates, one of the jolliest little figures to be seen.

Later in the afternoon a certain piece of the ice was roped off as being unsafe. Mr. Allonby warned the children not to go near it; and then, only a short time afterwards, a cry and a crash startled everyone near. A daring schoolboy had ventured beyond the rope and crashed through the ice into deep water. Mr. Allonby was close by with Bobby; in an instant he had dashed forwards, and after a breathless minute or two to Bobby, and before others had hardly taken in what was happening, he had dragged the boy safely up again. But, to Bobby's horror, as his father was coming back, the ice gave way in a fresh place under his feet, and he disappeared.

The child raised an agonising cry.

'Father's drowing! Father's drowing!'

Then ensued wild confusion. Ladies shrieked and rushed to the banks, there were loud cries for a ladder or a rope, but, as is often the case in private places, none were forthcoming in the spot in which they were required. In an instant one little figure went to the rescue, strong in his own willingness to save. He reached his father first. Holding out Nobbles to him, he cried:

'Catch hold, quick, quick, father! I'll pull you out! Oh, catch hold!'

Mr. Allonby was struggling to raise himself, but the ice kept breaking under his grip.

'Go back!' he shouted to Bobby. 'Go back!

But for once the child disobeyed.

When he saw his father sink before his eyes he raised a most piercing cry. In the distance they were bringing a ladder. Men were rushing frantically back to get it.

'Father! Father! Don't sink! Oh, do catch hold of Nobbles!'

'Hi, you little chap, you'll be going in yourself! Come back! Give me your stick! Here, Allonby, catch hold!'

Mr. Allonby's head appeared above the surface again, and in an instant the man behind Bobby had placed Nobbles across the hole in the ice. Exhausted as he was, Mr. Allonby gripped it, keeping himself afloat till a few men and boys formed a human ladder, and he was slowly drawn out of his perilous position. Bobby meanwhile was struggling madly in the grip of a youth.

'You little fool, keep still! Do you want to drown yourself! You were within an ace of it a minute ago! Your father will be all right in a minute. See--that's--the way. Hurrah, Selwyn--he's got him. Now pull together--hurrah! He's out, and none the worse, I bet!'

Bobby was screaming frantically: 'I wants to save him. Me and Nobbles can save him!' but when he saw his father rescued he stopped his screams and struggled to get to him. His little face was white to the lips. His father stooped to reassure him.

'I'm all right, sonny. Here's your stick! Come along up to the house with me! I'm too wet to stand about. They'll give me a change.'

He took hold of Bobby's hand and led him to the bank whilst they took off their skates together, and then they walked through the park, young Alan Daubeney, the son of the house, accompanying them.

'It was that little brute, Jim Carlton, he always disobey orders if he can! I'm thankful you were on the spot, Allonby, though it would have been a near case for you if we hadn't got at you when we did. Father will be furious with the gardeners. They were told to have ladders as a precaution, but it seems they left them at the other end.'

'Well, no harm's done. I don't think much of a sousing. I dare say you'll give me a change.'

'Of course.'

Then young Daubeney looked at Bobby.

'Your stick proved useful, youngster; a good thing you were by.'

'Yes,' said Mr. Allonby, with a little smile, 'it was all the support I needed. I should have gone entirely under if I had not had it at that identical minute.'

Bobby did not answer, but he tried to smile. It had been more of a shock to him than to his father, and it was not till he and True were in the train coming home that he ventured to speak of it.

'Father, you were nearly drownded!'

'I suppose I was, sonny, or I might have been.'

'Oh, what should I've done! what should I've done! That awful crackly ice!'

'I wish I'd seen it,' said True; 'a lady had such tight hold of my hand, she wouldn't let me go, and I never knewed it was dad tumbled in. I saw a boy come along dripping wet, and he looked awful frightened. If I'd known it was dad I'd have screamed!'

'Nobbles saved father,' said Bobby in an awestruck whisper. 'I believe he reely did!'

'I think he really did, my boy,' said Mr. Allonby, putting his arm round Bobby and drawing him to him; 'he and you together. We little thought this morning, when I told you to leave him at home, what he would be the means of doing.'

A slow smile spread over Bobby's face. The joy of this discovery quite wiped out the horror of the scene from his mind. He laid his curly head against his father's strong arm in infinite content.

'Me and Nobbles is 'stremely happy,' he said.

And then Mr. Allonby stooped and kissed him.

'Oh, Bobby, what a pity it is that lessons must separate us.'

But Bobby was too absorbed in his happiness to heed what his father said.

When they reached home Margot had to be told the whole story, and the next morning it was poured into Miss Robsart's ears, and then an expedition was made to Curly's crossing to tell him about it.

'For acourse you ought to know,' said Bobby, 'for you saved Nobble's life, and he saved father's, so it's got to do with you as well as me.'

And then True suggested that Lady Isobel should be written and told about it.

'And we'll make it up like a story, Bobby, for it's quite fit for a book, and I'll help you write it.'

Three afternoon's hard work in the sitting-room produced the following epistle, which went down to the country and greeted Lady Isobel one morning at breakfast:

'MY VERY DERE ANT ISBEL,--

'Father says you are my ant now. A wunderfull day hapend. Father and True and me and Nobbles went on our skats to skat in the cuntry. It was a very big pond, and a lot of pepul, and we went in the trane. Nobbles kam with us. The ice began to brake when a boy went on it where he was told not, and he went thro. It was an orful moment. And father and me saw him do it. Father gumped in the water and kort him and lifted him up, and he krawled out, and Father kam out too, and there was anuther crack, and Father went down and onley his head remaned and sum fingers. Me and Nobbles nerely burst with terrerr, but we went up very quik, and I held Nobbles out to dere father, and we was going to pull him out, but it was orfull, and sum men came up, and Nobbles was tuk and lade on his chest flat across the hole in the ice. Father's head had gorn down twice for the ice crakkeled in his fingers, but he tuk hold of Nobbles, and Nobbles smild and held him fast for hes so strong, and then a man lade down on his chest flat and held out his hand to Father and anuther man pulled hold of his legs, and anuther man pulled him, and I was pushed away for I wanted to pull too, but I did not cry but I was 'normusly fritend, and at larst Father was pulled out safe, but they saide if Nobbles had not been there he wood have drownded, so dont you think that me and Nobbles saved Father's life? He saide we did, and I am so glad for I luv him the best in the wurld, him and God in Heaven. It was an orful excedent, and Margot says we were nerely orfans, and me and Nobbles dremes of it nerely every night, so Nobbles is a herro, wich True says is anybuddy who saves life, and I helped him to do it. Plese rite to me soon.

Your luving little BOBBY.'

Lady Isobel handed this letter to her husband.

'Oh, Mortimer! we must have him here. I simply ache to have him every time I go up to his nursery.'

'Patience, my lady!' said her husband, laughing as he read Bobby's quaint production.

'"All things come to him who waits," and a bride of two months' standing ought not to ache for anyone but her husband!'

Bobby got a long and loving letter back from his new aunt, and he showed it to his father with great pride.

Lady Isobel's last sentence in her letter was, 'Ask father to tell you my plan that I talked to you about the day before I was married.'

'What is it, father?' asked Bobby.

I'll tell you this evening,' his father responded. 'True and you and I will have a confab over it.'

These confabs were a delight to the children. They had many of them on the hearthrug in the firelight, their father leaning back in his chair and smoking his pipe whilst he listened and talked.

'A plan is sure to be nice,' said True, 'and Lady Isobel's will be much better than the ones we make up, Bobby.'

So all that day they puzzled their heads over what it could be. And when at last the happy moment arrived they sat in rapt anticipation of their father's disclosure.

'I hope to sail away from England about the middle of May,' Mr. Allonby said, looking at the children gravely.

Bobby's lower lip began to quiver at once.

'I knewed that drefful day would be coming,' he said; 'but me and Nobbles tries to forget it.'

'This plan has to do with that day,' his father said cheerfully. 'What is going to become of you when I go off, do you think?'

'Oh,' said True, 'we've plans for that. Miss Robsart is coming to live with us, and she and Margot will look after us till you come back.'

Mr. Allonby shook his head.

'No, that won't work,' he said.

'Shall we be sented to school?' asked Bobby in a trembling voice.

'Now, listen! Your Uncle Mortimer and Aunt Isobel have said they will take care of you and True whilst I am away. Your Aunt wants you back in the old house, Bobby, and Miss Robsart is to go down there too, and go on teaching you till you've mastered your Latin declensions, and are ready for school.'

True clapped her hands delightedly, and a smile broke over Bobby's serious face.

'And will Miss Robsart's sick sister come too? She always said if she got into the country she could paint again.'

'I believe the idea is that she should go too. Your uncle has a cottage near that he is going to let them have. Margot will take charge of you still in the nursery, and I shall feel that you are being looked after well whilst I'm away. Do you think the plan will work?'

'Yes,' the children cried simultaneously; for Bobby had outgrown his dread of the silent house now, and the idea of going back there, and showing True all his old haunts filled him with delight.

'I wish,' said Bobby slowly, 'as we're all going there, that Curly could come too. Do you think, father dear, we could make a confab about him?'

'Go ahead, then. From your account he is quite a reformed character; but I don't see how he could form one of your party.'

'He's so very clean now,' continued Bobby earnestly; 'and Miss Robsart has got him into a shop. He dusts and sweeps and runs errands, but he told me yesterday he wants a run into the country awful bad. He would like to come with us.'

'Yes, he might black our boots and work in the garden,' said True. 'Will Lady Is'bel ask him, do you think, father?'

'No, I think she is doing quite enough if she takes charge of you two young pickles.'

'I shan't like leaving my friend behind,' said Bobby solemnly. 'You see, he saved Nobbles' life. He deserves me to remember him, and not go away and forget him.'

'You send him one of your letters,' said his father smiling, 'or a present. You needn't forget him because you're away from him. Is that what you are going to do with me?'

A look from Bobby was sufficient reply to this. Then, lapsing into his worst grammar, in his excitement he said, 'I never forgetted you one day since I was borned! It's like a bit of my puzzle map,' went on Bobby after a pause. 'It's a plan with a piece left out, and it isn't finished till it's putted in. Curly must be in our plan, father dear.'

'He may be in yours, but not in Lady Isobel's, I think,' said Mr. Allonby.

'We'll make a confab with Lady Is'bel about him when we get to her house,' suggested True. 'I believe she'll find a way to have him.'

Bobby cheered up at once.

'I believe she will. We'll ask her.'

And then, dismissing the one flaw in the delightful plan, they talked of Bobby's old home with enthusiasm till Margot came to take them to bed.