Two Maiden Aunts Part 10

A shriek from Nancy and a dreadful rumbling crack cut short his speech, and the next moment G.o.dfrey knew what was meant by ice not bearing.

The smooth surface gave way under him, the cold water was round his feet, and in an instant he would have been underneath it altogether but for the tub, to which he clung with all his might. There was a dreadful moment while Nancy screamed at the top of her voice and G.o.dfrey's knees and feet battered the tub in the cold black water, then with the triumphant exclamation, 'I've boarded her,' he tumbled over into it.

Luckily the tub, though old, was fairly water-tight, and bobbed up and down with G.o.dfrey inside it in the big hole which he had made, and though a wide s.p.a.ce of cracked ice and dark water lay between him and the sh.o.r.e, he seemed to be safe for the present. As for Nancy, she did the wisest thing she could and rushed down the lane calling for help.

She did not have to run far. Almost directly she heard steps on the frosty road, quickened at the sound of her screams, and a gentleman came round the bend of the lane, sending his voice before him as he shouted: 'What's the matter?'

His own eyes told him quicker than Nancy's breathless explanation.

'All right,' he exclaimed, 'he's safe while he keeps still. Don't cry, little woman, and I'll tow him ash.o.r.e.'

The next minute he had dragged a rail from a broken fence close by and held it out to G.o.dfrey.

'Hold tight,' he said; 'stand in the middle so that you balance your craft. Now then, a long pull and a strong pull,' and in another minute he had dragged the tub through the drifting ice to the bank and was lifting G.o.dfrey out.

'There, young man,' he said as he set him on his feet, 'lucky for you you're safe ash.o.r.e, for this pond's deep enough to cover half-a-dozen giants of your height. How came you cruising among the ice in a leaky craft, I should like to know?'

'I boarded her because the ice broke,' said G.o.dfrey frankly; 'I didn't know it was going to break.'

'No, I don't suppose you did. Lucky for you that you had her to board, young gentleman. Now then, right about face, and put your best foot foremost, and home as fast as you can before you get cold. Where do you live?'

'At Oakfield,' said G.o.dfrey, picking up the _Victory_.

'At Oakfield, do you? Then we shall have the pleasure of each other's company, for I am going that way. Let's see how fast you can walk.'

G.o.dfrey and Nancy trotted beside him as he strode along the frosty road.

'Now what put it into your head to come and look for frozen-up craft in the pond here?' he asked.

'I didn't,' said G.o.dfrey. 'I came to watch the French ports, and then I found it had turned into the Arctic Circle, so I went after the North-west Pa.s.sage instead. I wanted to be like one of those brave men.'

'Did you, though? And what particular heroes do you want to imitate?'

'I want to be a brave sailor,' said G.o.dfrey promptly, 'like Lord Nelson, and Admiral Collingwood, and most of all Kiah Parker's Captain Maitland.'

'And why "most of all"? I hope you'll be a braver man and a finer fellow than that, young man.'

G.o.dfrey's head only reached about as high as the gentleman's elbow, but he looked at him with as much scorn as if he had been a head taller.

'You don't understand a bit about it,' he said; 'n.o.body could be a finer fellow than the captain if he tried all his life long. P'r'aps you don't know about him carrying the little cabin-boy below with the French bullets flying all round; you'd better get Kiah to tell you, and then you'll be sorry you've been so stupid.'

'Oh well, we won't quarrel about such an unimportant person. What house in Oakfield do you live in?'

'At Oakfield Cottage,' said G.o.dfrey, still a little distrustful of a man who called Captain Maitland an unimportant person.

'Oh, I remember going to Oakfield Cottage when I was a little boy. And whom do you live with?'

'With my two maiden aunts,' said G.o.dfrey.

'They're so good!' put in Nancy, who liked to have her word in the conversation.

'I've no doubt they are. Now I haven't got any aunts at all that I know of, married or single. We'd better not tell these good ladies how nearly their nephew was at the bottom of the pond or we shall frighten them out of their wits, I'm afraid.'

'Oh, but I must,' said G.o.dfrey, gravely, 'because they told me not to come, and I did, and Aunt Angel's going to whip me.'

'Ah, well, of course we must tell the truth then, and perhaps if I beg for you I might get her to let you off the whipping.'

G.o.dfrey shook his head.

'Aunt Angel always does what she says,' he remarked.

'Well, she's quite right there,' said his new friend, though to himself he thought,

'Poor little chap, he's small for flogging. I wonder if the old lady's hand is heavy.'

Then he asked aloud,

'What made you come Arctic exploring if you knew the whipping was to follow?'

'I didn't like my sum,' confessed G.o.dfrey, 'and I did want to be like those brave men.'

'Ah,' said the stranger thoughtfully, 'do you know, little chap, you've begun at the wrong end? What do you think makes a brave man?'

'Killing lots of Frenchmen,' said G.o.dfrey promptly.

'Not a bit of it. Now, little maid, what do you say?'

'I think, please sir, that brave men don't mind when Frenchmen kill them, and shoot their legs and their fingers off like Uncle Kiah's.'

'That's nearer the mark, but that's not all. The bravest men are the ones that do what they don't like because it's right, and leave what they do like because it's wrong.'

G.o.dfrey's grave eyes looked up at the gentleman's face as they were used to looking at his Aunt Angel. After a minute he said, slowly,

'Should I have been more like the captain if I'd stayed and done the sum instead of going to be an Arctic discoverer?'

'You'd have been more like a hero, my lad, and you will be another time, I know. This is the way to Oakfield Cottage, isn't it? Do you live there too, little la.s.s?'

'Oh no, sir,' said Nancy; 'we live at the Place, sir, and take care of it for the captain.'

'Do you, though! And is it hard work?'

Nancy looked as important as if the welfare of the whole house depended on her efforts.

'Of course one can't help thinking a deal about what he'll say when he comes home,' she said. 'Patty says he'll as like as not be very particular in his ways. Sailors get to be that neat, she says. She always says it if I racket about or if I spill anything or break things.'

'Well, I wouldn't frighten myself before he comes, if I were you,' said the stranger good-naturedly. 'I shouldn't be surprised if he's not so very alarming. These people who look so big from a distance are often small enough when you get them close. Ah, there's the Cottage, I remember it, and somebody coming to the gate to look for you. These are your sisters, I suppose; you didn't tell me you had any sisters.'

'No,' said G.o.dfrey, 'these are my aunts.'

Then he ran straight forward and had hold of Angelica's dress in a moment, looking up straight into her face.