Littlebourne Lock Part 11

CHAPTER VII.

FOUND!

FAST as Mr. Webster rowed, it was not fast enough for Philip's anxiety. They both knew that if the _Fairy_ had drifted down to Banksome Weir they would probably be too late to save Juliet from a terrible death. On a single minute might depend the fate of the girl.

Mr. Webster set his teeth and pulled with all his strength; Mrs.

Webster was steering, and she kept the boat in mid-stream that it might get the full force of the current. Phil knelt in the bows, keeping the sharpest look-out for any sign of his missing cousin. The damp wind blew down the river and drove them on.

They pa.s.sed many other boats and two or three barges, but not a sign of the _Fairy_. They flew along between green banks, between hedges, trees, houses. Sometimes they could see nothing more distant than a hedge, at other times the flat fields stretched back and back, and were lost at the feet of misty gray hills. But not on the river, nor on the banks, nor in the fields, could Philip see Juliet's figure.

"How little even some grown men know about rowing!" was Mr. Webster's remark when he saw a heavy-looking boat with a smaller one tied to its stern coming up the middle of the stream. "It is that old gentleman who, they say, is staying at the hotel with his son, and their man-servant is sculling them up the very stiffest bit of the current."

"Hoorah!" shouted Philip. "All right, Juliet!"

For on the seat beside Mr. Burnet, sheltered by his umbrella, sat the truant girl, while young Leonard was giving Roberts instructions in the art of rowing.

The two boats met and came alongside. Philip was so greatly relieved in mind that he almost felt inclined to cry, while Juliet was silent and ashamed if not sulky.

"This child has given her friends at Littlebourne Lock a terrible fright," said Mr. Webster to Mr. Burnet. "When they discovered that the boat was missing as well as the girl, they quite thought that both must have gone over the weir together."

The vicar had brought his boat close beside Mr. Burnet's, and held the rowlocks of the latter while he asked questions.

"Is she hurt in any way?"

"No, not at all. I think we came upon her just in time."

"Had she got down as far as the weir?"

"Just to the first pier which is marked with the word DANGER."

"Oh, Juliet!" cried Philip with a gasp. "If the _Fairy_ had been drawn to the wrong side of that post--"

Mr. Webster looked so grave, and they were all so impressed with a sense of the great peril she had incurred, that Juliet's pride and coldness were broken down for once, and she sat beside Mr. Burnet weeping silently.

"Well, well," said Mrs. Webster, "she is tired, and I daresay hungry, and you had better get her home as quickly as you can. There is heavy rain coming up, and we must be down at Egham by four o'clock if possible. I am afraid we shall be caught by the storm. Philip Rowles, get into this gentleman's boat, and help to take your cousin home."

"And I will look in one day, little girl, and have a talk with you,"

said the vicar of Littlebourne as he bent to his work and flew down the river, distancing the storm.

Leonard Burnet now took an oar and Roberts took the other, and they rowed hard against wind and current. Mr. Burnet sheltered Juliet and himself as best he could against the rain, which came in heavy, uncertain dashes. Philip had to sit on the planks at their feet, for the stern seat only held two.

"Do tell me, Juliet, all that has happened to you. Did the _Fairy_ go adrift by accident?"

"No," replied Juliet through her m.u.f.fled sobs.

"Then how did she get unmoored? I do believe she has lost a scull!"

Philip added, trying to examine the poor old boat which was being towed behind them. "I can't make out very well, but I think she has lost a scull and her rudder."

"Yes," said Juliet in a husky voice.

"I don't know what my father will say--" Philip began.

"I know what he will say," interrupted Mr. Burnet. "He will be so overjoyed to see his little niece again safe and sound that he will say not a word about the scull and the rudder."

"He will want to know how it all happened," said Philip; then he added, addressing Juliet, "you will have to tell him every bit about it from beginning to end."

"I can't, I won't," said Juliet faintly.

Philip was all in a fidget to hear a full account of Juliet's adventure, so he said, shaking his head, "Ah, then, I should advise you to tell _me_ the story, and then I can tell it to father, and save you the trouble."

"Yes, Juliet," added Mr. Burnet; "tell us the whole story."

Thus persuaded, the girl poured out the tale of her adventures, which had been pent up in her stubborn heart, as the waters were sometimes pent up in the lock; and then, just as the waters when they escape from the lock pour out and away in a mad foaming rush, so Juliet's thoughts and words poured themselves out in a torrent when once she began to talk.

"I thought--I thought--it was quite easy to manage a boat; and I thought I would just take the _Fairy_ a little way, over to the opposite bank, and get some forget-me-nots and come back again."

"Were you not forbidden to take out the boat?" asked Mr. Burnet.

Juliet hung her head, and then lifting it said, "Yes; but I did not care. I would not be ordered about by them, nor by n.o.body. So I got into the boat when they were all busy and untied the bit of rope from the post, and then the water made it move away quite quick. And I wanted to sit on the little seat that goes across, and I slipt and caught my s.h.i.+n such a crack against the edge of it, and I went down on my face on the floor; and I should have liked to call out, but I did not want anybody to know that I was gone. And when I did get on the seat and rubbed my s.h.i.+n-bone, which it has got the skin scratched off and sticking to my stocking, there was two great pieces of wood to be put out on each side to push the boat on with."

"The sculls," Philip put in.

"They ain't skulls; they are more like arms, or legs perhaps. They were so heavy, and when I pulled one up from the floor and put the end of it over into the water, I found it was the wrong end, and the spoon part had come into the boat. So I got that one to go right after a fight with it, and the other one went right much sooner; and so when they were right in their sockets the boat was gone out into the middle of the water. And I _was_ frightened, I can tell you."

"I should think so!" said Mr. Burnet.

"Go on," said young Leonard.

"And so I tried to put both the sticks in the water at the same time, but when one went down the other went up, and the one that went down made a great splash, and then got itself so much under the water that it would not come up again for a long time; and so the one that went up seemed to get stuck, and when it came down it made a worse splash than the other one, and the water jumped up and hit me in the face and made my hat all wet. And there was a great black boat as big as Noah's ark going by, and three horses drawing it, and a little chimney in it, and two men, and they called out 'See-saw! see-saw!' and it was awful rude of them."

"And what happened next?"

"Why, I thought I could get along better if I had one oar at a time; and so I took up one and put both hands to it, and dipped it down deep and pulled it hard in the water, and so the other one got loose somehow and slipped away and fell into the water. And there was a boat and people sitting in it on chairs with fis.h.i.+ng-rods, and they did so laugh at me; and some men on the bank they laughed too, and called out something, but I don't know what they said. And then the boat went on and on, and I saw some broad white posts like you have at Littlebourne Weir, and the boat went up sideways tight against the posts, and I sat still and waited until somebody come by to help me."

"And were you not frightened?"

"I was that frightened I could not have spoke if it was ever so."

"Well, well, well," said Mr. Burnet, "here you are safe, and very thankful you must be that we came down just in time to save you. Had the boat been carried over the weir you would have been drowned. But when Roberts saw you he knew you were one of the Littlebourne children, and my son felt sure that you were in distress."

As soon as Juliet had told her story she relapsed into silence; the excitement of her rescue was pa.s.sing off, and the terror of her danger remained. She sat beside Mr. Burnet and heard the rain pattering on his umbrella, and wished she was at the lock and wished she was in London, and wished she was grown-up and doing for herself, and not so stupid and always putting other people out and making things go wrong.

Juliet was quite sure that though she had got into trouble with the boat, there were heaps of other things that she would be very clever about.

The rain was pouring down when Mr. Burnet's boat arrived at Littlebourne Lock.