the branches of the trees overhead, through which an occasional peep of
blue sky could be had, the grass below being yellow with buttercups or
patched in white with daisies, Jupp and Mary were grouped with the
children beneath a spreading elm in the centre of a sort of fairy ring
in the wood, a favourite halting-place with them all.
The porter for once in a way had a whole holiday, and had spent the
morning helping Joe the gardener in mowing the lawn and putting out
plants in the flower-beds in front of the vicarage; so after their early
dinner, the children under Mary's care came out with him for a regular
picnic tea in the woods, carrying a kettle with them to make a fire,
with plenty of milk and cakes and bread and butter, for it was intended
to have quite a feast in honour of "papa's birthday," the vicar having
promised to come and join them as soon as he had finished his parish
work.
The little ones had been romping with Jupp all the way to the wood under
the downs, running races with him and making detours here and there in
search of wild anemones and meadow-sweet, or else chasing butterflies
and the low-flying swallows that heralded the advent of summer, so they
were rather tired and glad to lie down on the grass and rest when they
reached their old elm-tree; albeit, on Jupp setting to work to pick up
sticks for the fire that was to boil the kettle, first one and then
another jumped up to help, for, really, they could not be quiet very
long.
The sticks being collected and Jupp having slung the camp-kettle over
them by the means of two forked props, in campaigning fashion, as he
well knew how to do as an old sailor, a match was quickly applied, and
there was soon a pleasant crackling sound of burning wood, accompanied
with showers of sparks like fireworks as the wind blew the blaze aside.
Soon, too, a nice thick column of smoke arose that reminded Conny of
what she had read of Indian encampments, although Jupp told her that if
he were abroad and near any of such dark-skinned gentry he would take
precious good care when making a fire to have as little smoke as
possible.
"Why?" asked Conny, always anxious for information in order to improve
her mind.
"Because I shouldn't like them to discover my whereabouts, unless, miss,
I knew 'em to be friends," said Jupp in answer.
"And how would you manage to have no smoke?" she next pertinently
inquired, like the sensible young lady she was.
"By always burning the very driest wood I could find, miss," replied
Jupp. "It is only the green branches and such as has sap in it that
makes the smoke."
"Oh!" ejaculated Conny, "I shall remember that. Thank you, Mr Jupp,
for telling me. I often wondered how they contrived to conceal their
camp-fires."
Teddy, with Cissy and Liz, had meanwhile been lying on the grass,
overcome with their exertions in stick-gathering, and were intently
watching a little glade in front of the elm-tree, some distance off
under a coppice. Here they knew there were lots of rabbit-burrows, and
they were waiting for some of the little animals to come out and perform
their toilets, as they usually did in the afternoon and early evening,
preparing themselves for bed-time, as the children said; but, for a long
while, not one appeared in sight.
"Dere's a bunny at last," whispered Cissy as one peeped out from its
hiding-place; and, seeing no cause for alarm in the presence of the
little picnic party, with whom no doubt it was now well acquainted, it
came further out from the coppice, sitting up on its haunches in the
usual free-and-easy fashion of rabbitikins, and beginning to comb out
its whiskers with its paws.
At the sight of this, Puck, who of course was cuddled up tightly in
Teddy's arms, began to bark; but it was such a feeble little bark that
not even the most timid of rabbits would have been frightened at it,
while as for the one Puck wished to terrify, this simply treated him
with the utmost contempt, taking no notice either of bark or dog.
Three or four other rabbits, too, impressed with the beauty of the
afternoon and the advantages of the situation, now followed their
comrade's example, coming out from their burrows and squatting on the
turf of the sloping glade in a semicircle opposite the children; while,
the more poor Puck tried to express his indignation at their free-and-
easiness, the more nonchalantly they regarded him, sitting up
comfortably and combing away, enjoying themselves as thoroughly as if
there was no such thing as a dog in existence, Puck's faint coughing
bark being utterly thrown away upon them.
"Imp'dent tings!" said Teddy, unloosing the small terrier; "do and lick
'em, Puck!"
The little woolly lamb-like dog, who certainly possessed a larger amount
of courage than would reasonably have been imagined from his attenuated
appearance, at once darted after the rabbits, who, jerking their short
tails in the funniest way possible and throwing up their hind-legs as if
they were going to turn somersaults and come down on the other side,
darted off down the glade, making for the holes of their burrows under
the coppice.
The artful Puck, however, having chased the gentry before, was up to all
their little dodges, so, instead of running for the rabbits directly, he
attacked their flank, endeavouring to cut off their retreat; and, in
this object succeeding, away went the hunted animals, now scared out of
their lives, down the side of the hill to the bottom, with Puck charging
after them, and Teddy following close behind, and Cissy and Liz bringing
up the rear.
Miss Conny was much too dignified to chase rabbits.
"Stop, Master Teddy! stop!" cried Mary. "Come back, Miss Liz and
Cissy--come back at once!"
The little girls immediately obeyed their nurse; but Teddy, who perhaps
in the ardour of the chase might not have heard her call, continued on
racing down the hill after Puck, as fast as his stumpy little legs could
carry him, his hat flying off and his pinafore streaming behind him in
the wind.
"Stop, Master Teddy, stop!" called out Mary again.
"Why can't you let him be?" said Jupp. "He's only enj'ying hisself with
the rabbits, and can't come to no harm on the grass."
"Little you know about it," retorted Mary, rather crossly it seemed to
Jupp. "Why, the river runs round just below the coppice; and if Master
Teddy runs on and can't stop himself, he'll fall into it--there!"
"My stars and stripes!" ejaculated Jupp starting up in alarm. "I'll go
after him at once."
"You'd better," said Mary as he set off running down the hill after
Teddy, singing out loudly for him to stop in a sort of reef-topsails-in-
a-heavy-squall voice that you could have heard more than a cable's
length ahead!
The momentum Teddy had gained, however, from the descent of the glade
prevented him from arresting his rapid footsteps, although he heard
Jupp's voice, the slope inclining the more abruptly towards the bottom
of the hill. Besides, Puck in pursuit of the rabbits was right in front
of him, and the dog, unable or unwilling to stop, bounded on into the
mass of rushes, now quite close, that filled the lower part of the
valley, and disappeared from Teddy's sight.
The next moment there was a wild yelp from Puck as he gripped the
rabbit, and both tumbled over the bank of the river into the water,
which was previously concealed from view; the dog's bark being echoed
immediately afterwards by a cry of alarm from Teddy and a heavy plunge,
as he, too, fell into the swiftly-flowing stream, and was borne out from
the bank by the rapid current away towards the mill-dam below!
CHAPTER FIVE.
BLOWN UP.
"Well, I never!" panted out Jupp as he raced down the incline at a
headlong speed towards the spot where he had seen Teddy disappear, and
whence had come his choking cry of alarm and the splash he made as he
fell into the water. "The b'y'll be drownded 'fore I can reach him!"
But, such was his haste, that, at the same instant in which he uttered
these words--more to himself than for anyone else's benefit, although he
spoke aloud--the osiers at the foot of the slope parted on either side
before the impetuous rush of his body, giving him a momentary glimpse of
the river, with Teddy's clutching fingers appearing just above the
surface and vainly appealing for help as he was sinking for the second
time; so, without pausing, the velocity he had gained in his run down
the declivity carrying him on almost in spite of himself, Jupp took a
magnificent header off the bank. Then,--rising after his plunge, with a
couple of powerful strokes he reached the unconscious boy, whose
struggles had now ceased from exhaustion, and, gripping fast hold of one
of his little arms, he towed him ashore.
Another second and Jupp would have been too late, Teddy's nearly
lifeless little form having already been caught in the whirling eddy of
the mill-race. Even as it was, the force of the on-sweeping current was
so great that it taxed all Jupp's powers to the utmost to withstand
being carried over the weir as he made for the side slanting-wise, so as
not to weary himself out uselessly by trying to fight against the full
strength of the stream, which, swollen with the rains of April, was
resistless in its flow and volume.
Swimming on his side, however, and striking out grandly, Jupp succeeded
at length in vanquishing the current, or rather made it serve his
purpose; and, presently, grasping hold of the branch of an alder that
hung over the river at the point of the bend, he drew himself up on the
bank with one hand, holding poor Teddy still with the other, to find
himself at the same moment confronted by Nurse Mary, with Cissy and Liz,
who had all hurried down the slope to the scene of the disaster.
"Oh, dear! oh, dear!--he's dead, he's dead!" wailed Mary, taking the
little fellow from Jupp and lifting him up in her arms, preparing to
start off at a run for the vicarage, while the little girls burst into a
torrent of tears.
"You just bide there!" said Jupp, preventing her from moving, and
looking like a giant Triton, all dripping with water, as he stepped
forward. "You just bide there!"
"But he'll die if something's not done at once to restore him,"
expostulated Mary, vainly trying to get away from the other's
restraining hold.
"So he might, if you took him all that long way 'fore doin' anything,"
replied Jupp grimly. "You gie him to me; I knows what's best to be
done. I've seed chaps drounded afore aboard ship, and brought to life
ag'in by using the proper methods to git back the circularation, as our
doctor in the _Neptune_ used to call it. You gie him to me!"
Impressed with his words, and knowing besides now from long acquaintance
that Jupp was what she called "a knowledgeable man," Mary accordingly
surrendered the apparently lifeless body of little Teddy; whereupon the
porter incontinently began to strip off all the boy's clothing, which of
course was wringing wet like his own.
"Have you got such a thing as a dry piece of flannel now, miss?" he then
asked Mary, hesitating somewhat to put his request into words, "like,
like--"
"You mean a flannel petticoat," said the girl promptly without the least
embarrassment in the exigencies of the case. "Just turn your back,
please, Mr Jupp, and I'll take mine off and give it to you."
No sooner was this said than it was done; when, Teddy's little naked
body being wrapped up warmly in the garment Mary had surrendered, and
turned over on the right side, she began under Jupp's directions to rub
his limbs, while the other alternately raised and depressed the child's
arms, and thus exercising--a regular expansion and depression of his
chest.
After about five minutes of this work a quantity of water that he had
swallowed was brought up by the little fellow; and next, Mary could feel
a slight pulsation of his heart.
"He's coming round! he's coming round!" she cried out joyously, causing
little Cissy's tears to cease flowing and Liz to join Mary in rubbing
Teddy's feet. "Go on, Mr Jupp, go on; and we'll soon bring him to."
"So we will," echoed her fellow-worker heartily, redoubling his
exertions to promote the circulation; and, in another minute a faint
flush was observable in Teddy's face, while his chest rose and fell with
a rhythmical motion, showing that the lungs were now inflated again and
in working order.
The little fellow had been brought back to life from the very gates of
death!
"Hooray!" shouted Jupp when Teddy at length opened his eyes, staring
wonderingly at those bending over him, and drawing away his foot from
Liz as if she tickled him, whereat Mary burst into a fit of violent
hysterical laughter, which terminated in that "good cry" customary with
her sex when carried away by excess of emotion.
Then, all at once, Teddy appeared to recollect what had happened; for
the look of bewilderment vanished from his eyes and he opened his mouth
to speak in that quaint, formal way of his which Jupp said always
reminded him of a judge on the bench when he was had up before the court
once at Portsmouth for smuggling tobacco from a troopship when paid off!
"Were's Puck an' de bunny?" he asked, as if what had occurred had been
merely an interlude and he was only anxious about the result of the
rabbit hunt that had so unwittingly led to his unexpected immersion and
narrow escape from drowning.
No one in the greater imminence of Teddy's peril had previously thought
of the dog or rabbit; but now, on a search being made, Puck was
discovered shivering by the side of the river, having managed to crawl
out somehow or other. As for the rabbit, which was only a young one or
the little woolly terrier could never have overtaken it in the chase
down the glade, no trace could be seen of it; and, consequently, it must
have been carried over the weir, where at the bottom of the river it was
now safe enough from all pursuit of either Puck or his master, and free
from all the cares of rabbit life and those ills that even harmless
bunnies have to bear!
When this point was satisfactorily settled, much to the dissatisfaction,
however, of Master Teddy, a sudden thought struck Mary.
"Why, wherever can Miss Conny be all this time?" she exclaimed, on
looking round and not finding her with the other children.
"See's done home," said Cissy laconically.
"Gone home!" repeated Mary. "Why?"
"Done fets dwy c'o's for Teddy," lisped the little girl, who seemed to
have been well informed beforehand as to her sister's movements,
although she herself had hurried down with the nurse to the river bank
in company with the others immediately Jupp had rushed to Teddy's
rescue.
"Well, I never!" ejaculated Mary, laughing again as she turned to Jupp.
"Who would have thought the little puss would have been so thoughtful?
But she has always been a funny child, older than her years, and almost
like an old woman in her ways."
"Bless you, she ain't none the worse for that!" observed Jupp in answer.
"She's a real good un, to think her little brother 'ud want dry things
arter his souse in the water, and to go and fetch 'em too without being
told."
"I expect you'd be none the worse either for going back and changing
your clothes," said Mary, eyeing his wet garments.
"Lor', it don't matter a bit about me," he replied, giving himself a
good shake like a Newfoundland dog, and scattering the drops about,
which pleased the children mightily, as he did it in such a funny way.
"I rayther likes it nor not."
"But you might catch cold," suggested Mary kindly.
"Catch your grandmother!" he retorted. "Sailors ain't mollycoddles."
"Wat's dat?" asked Teddy inquiringly, looking up at him.
"Why, sir," said Jupp, scratching his head reflectively--he had left his
cap under the elm-tree on top of the hill, where he had taken it off
when he set about building the fire for the kettle--"a mollycoddle is a
sort of chap as always wraps hisself up keerfully for fear the wind
should blow upon him and hurt his complexion."
"Oh!" said Teddy; but he did not seem any the wiser, and was about to
ask another question which might have puzzled Jupp, when Liz interrupted
the conversation, and changed the subject.
"There's Conny coming now, and Pa with her," she called out, pointing to
the top of the glade, where her father and elder sister could be seen
hurrying swiftly towards them, followed closely by Joe the gardener
bearing a big bundle of blankets and other things which the vicar
thought might be useful.
"My! Master must have been scared!" cried Mary, noticing in the
distance the anxious father's face. "Master Teddy do cause him trouble
enough, he's that fond of the boy!"
But, before Jupp could say anything in reply, the new arrivals had
approached the scene of action, Conny springing forward first of all and
hugging Teddy and Cissy and Liz all round. In the exuberance of her
delight, too, at their being safe and sound, when in her nervous dread
she had feared the worst, she extended the same greeting to Mary and
Jupp; for, she was an affectionate little thing, and highly emotional in
spite of her usually staid demeanour and retiring nature.
The vicar, too, could hardly contain himself for joy, and broke down
utterly when he tried to thank Jupp for rescuing his little son; while
Joe the gardener, not to be behindhand in this general expression of
good-will and gratitude, squeezed his quondam rival's fist in his,
ejaculating over and over again, with a broad grin on his bucolic face,
"You be's a proper sort, you be, hey, Meaister?" thereby calling upon
the vicar, as it were, to testify to the truth of the encomium.
He was a very funny man, Joe!
When the general excitement had subsided, and Teddy, who had in the
meantime been stalking about, a comical little figure, attired in Mary's
flannel petticoat, was re-dressed in the fresh suit of clothes Joe had
brought for him amidst the blankets, the whole party adjourned up the
hill to their old rendezvous under the elm-tree.
Here they found, greatly to their surprise and gratification, that
Jupp's well-built fire had not gone out, as all expected, during the
unforeseen digression that had occurred to break the even tenor of their
afternoon's entertainment, although left so long unattended to.
On the contrary, it was blazing away at a fine rate, with the kettle
slung on the forked sticks above it singing and sputtering, emitting
clouds of steam the while, "like an engine blowing off," as the porter
observed; so, all their preparations having been already completed, the
children carried out their original intention of having a festal tea in
honour of "Pa's birthday," he being set in their midst and told to do
nothing, being the guest of the occasion.
Never did bread and butter taste more appetisingly to the little ones
than when thus eaten out in the woods, away from all such stuck-up
surroundings as tables and chairs, and plates, and cups and saucers, and
the other absurd conventionalities of everyday life. They only had
three little tin pannikins for their tea, which they passed round in
turn, and a basket for their dish, using a leaf when the luxury of a
plate was desired by any sybarite of the party--those nice broad ones of
the dock making splendid platters.
Now, besides bread and butter, Molly the cook had compounded a delicious
dough-cake for them, having plums set in it at signal distances apart,
so conspicuous that any one could know they were there without going to
the trouble of counting them, which indeed would not have taken long to
do, their number being rather limited; and, what with the revulsion of
feeling at Teddy's providential escape, and the fact of having papa with
them, and all, they were in the very seventh heaven of enjoyment.
Conny and Cissy, who were the most active of the sprites, assisted by
the more deliberate Teddy and Liz, acted as "the grown-up people"
attending as hostesses and host to the requirements of "the children,"
as they called their father and Mary and Jupp, not omitting Joe the
gardener, who, squatting down on the extreme circumference of their
little circle, kept up a perpetual grin over the acres of bread and
butter he consumed, just as if he were having a real meal and not merely
playing!
The worthy gardener was certainly the skeleton, or cormorant, so to
speak, of the banquet, eating them almost out of house and home, it must
be mentioned in all due confidence; and, taking watch of his depravity
of behaviour in this respect, the thoughtful Conny registered an inward
determination never to invite Joe to another of their al fresco feasts,
if she could possibly avoid doing so without seriously wounding his
sensibilities. The way he walked into that dough-cake would have made
anyone almost cry.
The fete, however, excepting this drawback, passed off successfully
enough without any other contretemps; and after the last crumb of cake
had been eaten by Joe, and the things packed up, the little party wended
their way home happily in the mellow May evening, through the fields
green with the sprouting corn, with the swallows skimming round them and
the lark high in the sky above singing her lullaby song for the night
and flopping down to her nest.
Towards the end of the month, however, Teddy managed somehow or other to
get into another scrape.
"There never was such a boy," as Mary said. He was "always in hot
water."
The queen's birthday coming round soon after the vicar's, Jupp,
remembering how it used to be kept up when he was in the navy, great
guns banging away at royal salutes while the small-arm men on board
fired a _feu de joie_, or "fire of joy," as he translated it by the aid
of Miss Conny, who happened just then to be studying French, he
determined to celebrate the anniversary as a loyal subject in similar
fashion at the vicarage, with the aid of a couple of toy cannon and a
small bag of powder which he purchased for the purpose.
Teddy, of course, was taken into his confidence, the artillery
experiments being planned for his especial delectation; so, coming up to
the house just about noon on the day of the royal anniversary, when he
was able to get away from the station for an hour, leaving his mate
Grigson in charge, he set about loading the ordnance and getting ready
for the salute, with a train laid over the touch-holes of the cannon to
set light to the moment it was twelve o'clock, according to the
established etiquette in the navy, a box of matches being placed handy
for the purpose.
As ill luck would have it, though, some few minutes before the proper
time, Mary, who was trying to sling a clothes-line in the back garden,
called Jupp to her assistance, and he being her attentive squire on all
occasions, and an assiduous cavalier of dames, hastened to help her,
leaving Teddy in charge of the loaded cannon, the gunpowder train, and
lastly, though by no means least, the box of matches.
The result can readily be foreseen.
Hardly had Jupp reached Mary's side and proceeded to hoist the
obstreperous clothes-line, when "Bang! bang!" came the reports of
distant cannonading on the front lawn, followed by an appalling yell
from the little girls, who from the safe point of vantage of the
drawing-room windows were looking on at the preparations of war.
To rush back through the side gate round to the front was but the work
of an instant with Jupp, and, followed by Mary, he was almost as quickly
on the spot as the sound of the explosion had been heard.
He thought that Master Teddy had only prematurely discharged the cannon,
and that was all; but when he reached the lawn what was his
consternation to observe a thick black cloud of smoke hanging in the
air, much greater than could possibly have been produced by the little
toy cannon being fired off, while Teddy, the cause of all the mischief,
was nowhere to be seen at all!
CHAPTER SIX.
THE POND IN THE MEADOW.
Not a trace of the boy could be seen anywhere.
The cause of the explosion was apparent enough; for, the little wooden
box on which Jupp had mounted the toy cannons, lashing them down firmly,
and securing them with breechings in sailor-fashion, to prevent their
kicking when fired, had been overturned, and a jug that he had brought
out from the house containing water to damp the fuse with, was smashed
to atoms, while of the box of matches and the bag of powder only a few
smouldering fragments remained--a round hole burned in the grass near
telling, if further proof were needed, that in his eagerness to start
the salute, Master Teddy, impatient as usual, had struck a light to
ignite the train, and this, accidentally communicating with the bag of
powder, had resulted in a grand flare-up of the whole contents.