We and the World Volume I Part 10

"Will you walk with me?" he asked. But I refused. I thought I would rather watch the others; and accordingly, after I had followed the school-master with my eyes as he strode off at a pace that promised soon to bring him back, I put my hands into my pockets and joined the groups of watchers on the bank. I suppose if I had thought about it, I might have observed that though I was dawdling about, my nose and ears and fingers were not nipped. Mr. Wood was right,--it had not been freezing for hours past.

The first thing I looked for was the heavy man. He was so clumsy-looking that I quite expected him to fall when he walked off on to ice only fit for skaters. But as I looked closer I saw that the wet on the top was beginning to have a curdled look, and that the gla.s.siness of the mill-dam was much diminished. The heavy man's heavy boots got good foothold, and several of his friends, seeing this, went after him. And my promise weighed sorely on me.

The next thing that drew my attention was a lad of about seventeen, who was skating really well. Indeed, everybody was looking at him, for he was the only one of the villagers who could perform in any but the clumsiest fas.h.i.+on, and, with an active interest that hovered between jeering and applause, his neighbours followed him up and down the dam.

As I might not go on, I wandered up and down the bank too, and occasionally joined in a murmured cheer when he deftly evaded some intentional blunderer, or cut a figure at the request of his particular friends. I got tired at last, and went down to the pond, where I ploughed about for a time on my skates in solitude, for the pond was empty. Then I ran up to the house to see if Jem had come back, but he had not, and I returned to the dam to wait for the school-master.

The crowd was larger than before, for everybody's work-hours were over; and the skater was still displaying himself. He was doing very difficult figures now, and I ran round to where the bank was covered with people watching him. In the minute that followed I remember three things with curious distinctness. First, that I saw Mr. Wood coming back, only one field off, and beckoned to him to be quick, because the lad was beginning to cut a double three backwards, and I wanted the school-master to see it. Secondly, that the sight of him seemed suddenly to bring to my mind that we were all on the far side of the dam, the side he thought dangerous. And thirdly, that, quickly as my eyes pa.s.sed from Mr. Wood to the skater, I caught sight of a bloated-looking young man, whom we all knew as a sort of typical "bad lot," standing with another man who was a great better, and from a movement between them, it just flashed through my head that they were betting as to whether the lad would cut the double three backwards or not.

He cut one--two--and then he turned too quickly and his skate caught in the softening ice, and when he came headlong, his head struck, and where it struck it went through. It looked so horrible that it was a relief to see him begin to struggle; but the weakened ice broke around him with every effort, and he went down.

For many a year afterwards I used to dream of his face as he sank, and of the way the ice heaved like the breast of some living thing, and fell back, and of the heavy waves that rippled over it out of that awful hole. But great as was the shock, it was small to the storm of shame and agony that came over me when I realized that every comrade who had been around the lad had saved himself by a rush to the bank, where we huddled together, a gaping crowd of foolhardy cowards, without skill to do anything or heart to dare anything to save him.

At that time it maddened me so, that I felt that if I could not help the lad I would rather be drowned in the hole with him, and I began to scramble in a foolish way down the bank, but John Binder caught me by the arm and pulled me back, and said (I suppose to soothe me),

"Yon's the school-master, sir;" and then I saw Mr. Wood fling himself over the hedge by the alder thicket (he was rather good at high jumps), and come flying along the bank towards us, when he said,

"What's the matter?"

I threw my arms round him and sobbed, "He was cutting a double three backwards, and he went in."

Mr. Wood unclasped my arms and turned to the rest.

"What have you done with him?" he said. "Did he hurt himself?"

If the crowd was cowardly and helpless, it was not indifferent; and I shall never forget the haggard faces that turned by one impulse, where a dozen grimy hands pointed--to the hole.

"He's drowned dead." "He's under t' ice." "He went right down," several men hastened to reply, but most of them only enforced the mute explanation of their pointed finger with, "He's yonder."

For yet an instant I don't think Mr. Wood believed it, and then he seized the man next to him (without looking, for he was blind with rage) and said,

"He's yonder, _and you're here_?"

As it happened, it was the man who had talked with his back to us. He was very big and very heavy, but he reeled when Mr. Wood shook him, like a feather caught by a storm.

"You were foolhardy enough an hour ago," said the school-master. "Won't one of you venture on to your own dam to help a drowning man?"

"There's none on us can swim, sir," said John Binder. "It's a bad job"--and he gave a sob that made me begin to cry again, and several other people too--"but where'd be t' use of drowning five or six more atop of him?"

"Can any of you run if you can't swim?" said the school-master. "Get a stout rope--as fast as you can, and send somebody for the doctor and a bottle of brandy, and a blanket or two to carry him home in. Jack! Hold these."

I took his watch and his purse, and he went down the bank and walked on to the ice; but after a time his feet went through as the skater's head had gone.

"It ain't a bit of use. There's nought to be done," said the bystanders: for, except those who had run to do Mr. Wood's bidding, we were all watching and all huddled closer to the edge than ever. The school-master went down on his hands and knees, on which a big lad, with his hands in his trouser-pockets, guffawed.

"What's he up to now?" he asked.

"Thee may haud thee tongue if thee can do nought," said a mill-girl who had come up. "I reckon he knows what he's efter better nor thee." She had pushed to the front, and was crouched upon the edge, and seemed very much excited. "G.o.d bless him for trying to save t' best lad in t'

village i' any fas.h.i.+on, say I! There's them that's nearer kin to him and not so kind."

Perhaps the strict justice of this taunt prevented a reply (for there lurks some fairness in the roughest of us), or perhaps the crowd, being chiefly men knew from experience that there are occasions when it is best to let a woman say her say.

"Ye see he's trying to spread hisself out," John Binder explained in pacific tones. "I reckon he thinks it'll bear him if he s.h.i.+fts half of his weight on to his hands."

The girl got nearer to the mason, and looked up at him with her eyes full of tears.

"Thank ye, John," she said. "D'ye think he'll get him out?"

"Maybe he will, my la.s.s. He's a man that knows what he's doing. I'll say so much for him."

"Nay!" added the mason sorrowfully. "Th' ice 'll never hold him--his hand's in--and there goes his knee. Maester! maester!" he shouted, "come off! come off!" and many a voice besides mine echoed him, "Come off!

come off!"

The girl got John Binder by the arm, and said hoa.r.s.ely, "Fetch him off!

He's a reight good 'un--over good to be drownded, if--if it's of no use." And she sat down on the bank, and pulled her mill-shawl over her head, and cried as I had never seen any one cry before.

I was so busy watching her that I did not see that Mr. Wood had got back to the bank. Several hands were held out to help him, but he shook his head and said--"Got a knife?"

Two or three jack-knives were out in an instant. He pointed to the alder thicket. "I want two poles," he said, "sixteen feet long, if you can, and as thick as my wrist at the bottom."

"All right, sir."

He sat down on the bank, and I rushed up and took one of his cold wet hands in both mine, and said, "Please, please, don't go on any more."

"He must be dead ever so long ago," I added, repeating what I had heard.

"He hasn't been in the water ten minutes," said the school-master, laughing, "Jack! Jack! you're not half ready for travelling yet. You must learn not to lose your head and your heart and your wits and your sense of time in this fas.h.i.+on, if you mean to be any good at a pinch to yourself or your neighbours. Has the rope come?"

"No, sir."

"Those poles?" said the school-master, getting up.

"They're here!" I shouted, as a young forest of poles came towards us, so willing had been the owners of the jack-knives. The thickest had been cut by the heavy man, and Mr. Wood took it first.

"Thank you, friend," he said. The man didn't speak, and he turned his back as usual, but he gave a sideways surly nod before he turned. The school-master chose a second pole, and then pushed both before him right out on to the ice, in such a way that with the points touching each other they formed a sort of huge A, the thicker ends being the nearer to the bank.

"Now, Jack," said he, "pay attention; and no more blubbering. There's always plenty of time for giving way _afterwards_."

As he spoke he scrambled on to the poles, and began to work himself and them over the ice, wriggling in a kind of snake fas.h.i.+on in the direction of the hole. We watched him breathlessly, but within ten yards of the hole he stopped. He evidently dared not go on; and the same thought seized all of us--"Can he get back?" Spreading his legs and arms he now lay flat upon the poles, peering towards the hole as if to try if he could see anything of the drowning man. It was only for an instant, then he rolled over on to the rotten ice, smashed through, and sank more suddenly than the skater had done.

The mill-girl jumped up with a wild cry and rushed to the water, but John Binder pulled her back as he had pulled me. Martha, our housemaid, said afterwards (and was ready to take oath on the gilt-edged Church service my mother gave her) that the girl was so violent that it took fourteen men to hold her; but Martha wasn't there, and I only saw two, one at each arm, and when she fainted they laid her down and left her, and hurried back to see what was going on. For tenderness is an acquired grace in men, and it was not common in our neighbourhood.

What was going on was that John Binder had torn his hat from his head and was saying, "I don't know if there's aught we _can_ do, but I can't go home myself and leave him yonder. I'm a married man with a family, but I don't vally _my_ life if----"

But the rest of this speech was drowned in noise more eloquent than words, and then it broke into cries of "See thee!--It is--it's t'

maester! and he has--no!--yea!--he _has_--he's gotten him. Polly, la.s.s!

he's fetched up thy Arthur by t' hair of his heead."

It was strictly true. The school-master told me afterwards how it was.