NED WEBB'S OUTING.
"Your grandmother is right, Edward. I agree with her entirely. She
thinks that too much of your vacation time ought not to be spent in the
woods, and it must not be. I wish, however, to say something more. Your
education must continue without too great an interruption. There are
ideas which I intend you to obtain while under my care."
"Why, grandfather!" exclaimed Ned, with a somewhat puzzled look on his
face. "I think so, too. I don't care to be all the while in the woods.
I want to do some fishing."
"Exactly," said his grandfather. "We both approve of that. You may have
all the rods and lines you need, but you must not forget the wise
saying of the immortal Franklin, that going fishing means only a rod
and line with a worm at each end of it. There is not much to be caught
in Green Lake."
"Well," said Ned, "I guess I'll pull in something better'n suckers and
bullheads. There are trout and perch and bass and pickerel."
"Eels, too," suggested his grandfather. "What I mean is, practically,
that you are to employ a part of each day among your books. I
especially wish you to acquire a rudimentary acquaintance with the
history of the world you live in."
"Yes, sir, I know what that is," said Ned. "They bored us with it,
awfully, at School Number Sixty-eight. I had to be examined on it, too,
and I didn't get turned down."
Ned had safely reached his grandfather's house in the country. It was a
large and handsome mansion. They two were now in the library, on the
morning after his arrival. One glance at the ranges of bookcases was
enough to afford an indication of the old gentleman's hobby. He was a
distinguished member of the Historical Society; of the Antediluvian
Research Association; of the Paleontological; the Paleozoic, and of
several other brilliant scientific corporations. He was a short, stocky
old man, and very positive in his manners. Possibly he might now have
responded even severely, but at this moment a tall, thin, gray-haired,
benevolent-looking woman entered the library.
"Edward," she said, brushing a lot of dust from her dress, "I've been
going over that fishing-tackle for you. You may pick out all you want
of it, if you'll only let the guns alone. I can't let you play with
gunpowder. Your grandfather mustn't make a bookworm of you, either."
"Oh," said Ned, "I was thinking of that. Worms! I guess I know where to
dig 'em. What I'm going to go for, this morning, is the horses."
"That's what you may do," said his grandfather, somewhat as if he had
been getting orders from his wife. "You'd better fight shy of that
sorrel filly, though. She might pitch you over her head."
"Why, Edward," interposed his grandmother, "you rode that colt a good
many times, last vacation. She's better broken in now. I've driven her,
myself. She's as kind and gentle as a kitten, but she's playful."
"Humph!" remarked the old gentleman. "She kicked one buggy into the
middle of next week. I won't drive her."
There was more to be said, but Ned escaped with his grandmother to go
and take a look at the fishing-tackle. It was in a closet of one of the
up-stairs rooms, and it was worth any boy's while to have the rummaging
of that closet.
"It's a perfect curiosity shop," said Ned, as he stared into it. "Why,
grandmother, he must have been a tremendous fisherman."
"So he was," she said, "when he was a younger man. That isn't all of
it, though. This is his collection of all the implements employed by
civilised and uncivilised tribes for catching fish. It isn't sorted
very well, but that other side is packed with nets and spears. I'm
afraid there isn't a really good boat for you on Green Lake. Clumsy
things!"
"Anything'll do for me," said Ned. "I'm a sailor. Do you know, the
other day, I went to see the _Kentucky_, the new line-o'-battle-ship.
She's a giant."
"Oh, dear!" laughed the old lady. "If your grandfather could buy her at
auction, he'd stow her away in this closet, for one of his specimens."
"I can see all I want," replied Ned. "I'll come and pick it out by and
by. May I go to the barns now?"
"Go right along," she said. "Hadn't you better take a ride to Green
Lake? It's only a mile or so, and horseback exercise'll do you good."
She kept him a few minutes, however, to explain the nature of some of
the more remarkable antiquities in the closet. Then he was down-stairs
again, but he was not a free boy yet, for his grandfather caught him
and led him into the library again.
"Edward," he said, solemnly, as they passed the doorway, "if there
is anything I disapprove of, more than another, it is what they are
printing nowadays to occupy the empty minds of the young,--the things
which they advertise as popular books for boys, for instance. I find
that even where they are more or less historical in character, they are
also perniciously imaginative, often presenting utter improbabilities
as history. I will show you something, now, that will be worth your
while. I suppose that you do not know anything of consequence
concerning your Scandinavian forefathers."
"Yes, I do," said Ned. "Our old Erica's a Norway girl. I can talk with
her in Norwegian."
"What!" exclaimed his grandfather. "Have you actually acquired the
difficult tongue of the Vikings and Berserkers? That is wonderful! Then
you will be doubly interested in the work you are about to peruse."
"I guess I can swallow it," said Ned. "Are you going to give me a look
at it?"
The old gentleman walked over to a corner of the library and pulled out
from one of the lower shelves an exceedingly promising or portentous
volume. He was a strong man, and he lifted it to the centre-table,
throwing it wide open as he did so, and remarking:
"There, now! That's a book for a boy!"
Ned drew a long breath, in spite of some dust that flew from the book,
as he came to the table.
"Examine it," said his grandfather.
Ned turned first to the title-page, of course, to see what it was.
HISTORY OF THE NORMANS.
By
PROFESSOR SCHWEINFURTH BFJORNNSSEN.
Translated by
BARON FRITZ VON PLOKINWICZ.
475 Illustrations.
Published by
DRONTHEIM & WESTMINSTER.
Boston and Copenhagen.
1900.
A pencilled memorandum added:
5,000 pp. $50.
"This is just the thing!" exclaimed Ned. "I can look at every picture
in it while I'm here. I guess not many of 'em are photos, though. They
are splendid!"
[Illustration: "'THERE ISN'T ANY SCHOOL-BOOK ABOUT THIS.'"]
"They are works of art, all of 'em," said his grandfather. "I believe
them to be sufficiently accurate, and that you may depend upon their
instructive value."
"I see," said Ned. "All about ever so many fights. I'll go right into
it. Tell you what, grandfather, there isn't any school-book about this."
The old gentleman was evidently gratified by the eagerness with which
Ned began to turn over the leaves, and he remarked, benevolently:
"It will give you a thorough knowledge of men and times whereof we have
as yet discovered very little. The Vikings were a wonderful race of
men."
"They'd fight like anything," said Ned. "Pirates, buccaneers,
freebooters,--I'd like to see one of their battles. They blew horns all
the while. Yelled. Sung songs. Yes, sir! It's the biggest kind of book."
"Go, now," said his grandfather, still more delighted with Ned's
enthusiasm. "You may try the sorrel colt, but be careful."
The barns and stables of the Webb place were at some distance in the
rear of the mansion. At the right of the largest barn was a four-acre
paddock, but it did not seem to have many occupants. At this hour
of the day all work-horses were away at their farm duties. The
carriage-horses were in their stalls, waiting for orders. All that Ned
saw, therefore, on his arrival, were a brace of very young colts, four
Devon calves, as handsome as pictures, and one three-year-old sorrel
filly. She was in the hands of a groom, and instead of a halter she
was wearing a bridle, with a plain snaffle-bit. Just at this moment
the groom was putting upon her back a pretty blue blanket with white
borders. She was a large animal for her age, and Ned was already aware
that she had earned a reputation as a racer.
"There's speed in her!" he remarked. "She'll show time, one of these
days. Temper? Well, I don't care if there is. Good horses always have
some."
Nanny's beautiful eyes looked gentle enough, and they were full of
intelligence. She neighed inquiringly as he drew nearer.
"Hullo! How are ye, Masther Ned? Hark to the mare, now. She's askin'
the name of ye. Come along, and spake to her."
"How are you, Pat McCarty?" called back Ned. "Nanny's looking fine!
Grandfather says I may ride her."
"All right," said Pat. "She's ready. I was goin' to exercise her,
meself."
A dozen more questions and answers followed rapidly, while Ned was
caressing and admiring the perfectly shaped quadruped. She turned her
pretty head to look at him, as he walked around her, and he was aware
of a curious notion that she was now and then winking at him. She
seemed, at the same time, a little impatient and restless, as if it
irritated her to have to stand still.
"You'll do as well without a saddle," said Pat. "Sometimes she objects
to a saddle. The blanket and surcingle is all the summer goods she
wants to wear."
"Guess they're enough," laughed Ned.
He was getting wildly eager for his romp with Nanny. Whether or not she
remembered him, she seemed to be disposed to treat him politely. She
even craned out her neck and pulled off his hat for him, taking the
brim in her teeth.
"She's friendly, the day," said Pat. "Put your fut in me hand and I'll
give ye the lift to the back of her."
Ned was as nimble as a monkey. In a moment more he was on Nanny's back,
bridle in hand, feeling splendidly.
"Aff wid ye," said Pat. "I'll open the gate for ye. Ave she wants to
go, though, it's little good to thry an' hould her in."
"I won't," said Ned. "I'll just let her fly!"
He was thrilling all over with the excitement of being so well mounted,
and he really knew how to ride. As for Nanny, she appeared to be set
on springs, and her progress to the gate was a series of graceful
curvetings, as easy for her rider as the motion of a rocking-chair.
They were now in the barnyard, and a lane from this led out into the
road. Pat was no longer needed, for the yard gate was open, and Nanny
pranced along through without any guiding.
"Luk at her!" shouted Pat. "She's out for fun the day. She's full o'
life. Oh! but isn't she a beauty!"
"Whoop!" yelled Ned. "This is better than being shut up in a grammar
school."
"It's the fine b'ye he is, ave they don't spile him entirely, among
thim," remarked Pat, thoughtfully. "The ould grandmother'd give him
the house and all, and the grandfather's been just a-waitin' for him
till he kem. They're the right sort o' people, thim Webbs."
The highway was clear and Nanny went into it at her own gait, a kind of
springing, elastic canter that was not at first very rapid.
"This is the road toward Green Lake," thought Ned. "It's just the one
I meant to take. I'll get there, to-morrow or next day, and see if
there's any fishing. Sometimes they didn't bite worth a cent, last
year. I'll find a boat, somehow. I can take a book along, too. Then I
won't have to sit still for an hour at a time, doing nothing."
Men and women in wagons and carriages, which he shortly met or passed,
all turned for a look at Nanny, and it was quite apparent that she
appreciated their admiration. Two or three times, indeed, she induced
Ned to make a mild, restraining pull upon the bridle, but each time she
resented his attempt at control by a shake of her head, followed by a
vigorous bound forward.
"I'd better take Pat's advice," he thought. "If she wants to speed it,
I'll let her go. I can stick on, anyhow."
He had no doubt whatever on that point, and was not at all nervous.
At the end of less than three-quarters of a mile, however, there was
a narrow lane that left the highway on the right, though not at right
angles. This lane was bordered by rail fences, trees, bushes, and
farther on it led through a patch of dense forest.
"Green Lake Lane," thought Ned. "I won't go there to-day."
On that point he should have first consulted the sorrel colt under
him. The instant she came to the head of the lane she uttered a sharp
exclamation and whirled gaily into it. Ned at once drew upon his bridle
in an attempt to guide her back into the highway. Up went her heels a
little viciously, and her easy gallop changed into something like a
run. If she had now only a quarter-mile to go, she was determined to
make short work of whatever errand was in her mind.
"She's going like lightning!" exclaimed Ned, clinging his best and
pulling hard.
"This lane runs right on into the lake. Oh, my!"
Faster, faster, went the beautiful thoroughbred racer. The trees at the
roadside seemed to go flashing by, and now the lake itself was in full
view ahead.
It was a broad, placid, forest-bordered sheet of water, apparently
somewhat irregular in shape. There were neither wharves nor piers nor
boathouses to be seen.
The entire lake landscape was wildly picturesque,--if Ned could at that
moment have considered at all any of the beauties of nature. He could
not have done so, for it seemed to him that Nanny was not even giving
him time to think. Long afterward, he remembered asking himself if it
were possible that Nanny had any idea of going for a swim.
[Illustration: "NED DID NOT SIT STILL AT ALL."]
She had no such intentions, indeed. She had other plans and purposes,
and she carried out her own conception of a grand morning romp with Ned
to perfection.
The moderate slope to the water's edge was green with grass, and the
little waves came rippling in smilingly. The water there was not very
shallow, however.
On--on--sprang swiftly the sorrel colt, and it was plain that only the
lake itself could stop her.
That is, the bridle and bit were of no account, but she could stop
herself. Her round yellow fore hoofs came down side by side at the
margin, and the water was only a few inches above her silken fetlocks
when she suddenly, sharply braced herself as still as if she had been
instantaneously cast in bronze for exhibition.
Ned did not sit still at all. He was cast clean over the gracefully
bowing head of the playful Nanny, right into Green Lake, as far as she
could throw him.
Beyond all doubt, she had accomplished her purposes remarkably well.
There was no actual harm done to her rider, either, for the water in
which Ned landed, if a boy can correctly be said to land in water, was
fully four feet deep. He went into it head first, heels up, hat flying,
with a kind of astonished yell in his throat that was drowned before it
could get away from him.
When he came to the surface again and struck out for the shore,
recapturing his floating hat on the way, there stood Nanny entirely
calm and as gentle as ever.
Now again he could almost have believed that she was winking at him.
She neighed very kindly, drank some lake water, and then she lifted her
head and gazed around the lake as if she enjoyed the scenery.
"I can mount her again," asserted Ned, as he stood still to drip. "Oh,
but ain't I glad I lighted on something soft! It wasn't a fair throw,
anyhow. I hadn't anything left to hold on with."
Whatever he meant by that, she had slung him over her head, and there
was very little doubt but what she could do it again. She had a will of
her own, too, as to being ridden, and she as much as said so when he
went to get hold of her bridle, intending to lead her to a neighbouring
log and remount. He did not succeed in putting a hand on the leather.
Up went her heels, around she whirled, and away she went, neighing
cheerfully as she galloped along the lane.
"Now, this is too bad!" groaned Ned. "I'm as wet as a drowned rat and
I've got to foot it home. Nanny'll get there before I do, too, unless
she runs away somewhere else, and they'll all wonder what's become of
me."
He felt humiliated, discouraged, and not at all like the kind of
fellow to command ironclads and lead armies.
There was nothing else to be done, nevertheless, and he began to trudge
dolefully along on his homeward way. Walking in wet clothing is not
very comfortable exercise, anyhow, and Ned was not now, by any means,
the nobby-looking young man from the city that he had been when he rode
away that morning. Even more than before, when he was so well mounted,
did curious people turn in their carriages and wagons to stare at him.
It was on his mind that every one of them had a good laugh and remarked:
"That chap's had a ducking!"
He plodded along, and succeeded in getting half-way before anything
serious occurred. Then, indeed, he suddenly stood stock-still, and
wished he had been farther.
"There they come!" he exclaimed. "There are grandfather and grandmother
and Pat and old Mrs. Emmons and Uncle Jack. More people behind 'em.
Oh, dear! They've seen me already, or I'd climb a fence."
It was altogether too late for any attempt at escape. In a few moments
more they were in front of him, and all around him, saying all sorts
of things so rapidly that he had to keep shut up till they gave him a
chance.
"Oh, my blessed boy!" exclaimed Grandmother Webb. "If you wasn't so
wet, I'd hug you! We thought the colt had thrown you; we were afraid
you were killed!"
"No!" said Ned, with energy. "But she fired me over her head into the
lake, and I swam ashore."
"I caught her," put in Pat McCarty. "Here she is,--the beauty! That was
for thryin' to hould her in. You must niver do that ag'in."
"I didn't pull much," said Ned.
Uncle Jack had been looking him all over, critically, from head to
foot.
"That lake is very wet," he remarked. "Ned, my boy, I'm glad the
critter projected you into soft water. You've come out of it a
fine-looking bird."
"I don't care," said Ned. "This blue flannel doesn't shrink with
wetting. My hat'll be all right as soon as it's dry; so'll my shoes."
At that moment he heard a shrill, soft neigh close to his ear, and
Nanny poked her head over his shoulder to gaze affectionately at the
family gathering, as if she felt that she was entitled to some of the
credit of the occasion.
"It's the fun of her," said Pat. "It's just the joke she played on the
b'ye. She knows more'n half the min."
"Edward," commanded his grandfather, "come right back to the house."
"He can't ketch cold sech a day as this," said old Mrs. Emmons, "or I'd
make him some pepper tea; but his mother mustn't hear of it. How it
would skeer her!"
"No, it wouldn't," said Ned. "She knows I can swim. Father won't care,
either, so long's I got ashore."
The procession set out for the house, Pat and Nanny marching ahead.
It grew, too, as it went, for ever so many of the village boys came
hurrying to join it, and to inquire how it was that Nanny made out to
throw Ned into Green Lake. Then they all went forward to walk along
with her, full of admiration for a colt that knew how to give a boy a
ducking.
"She slung him," said one.
"Hove him clean over her head."
"She was goin' a mile a minute."
"If I'd ha' been Ned, I'd ha' braced back and stuck on."
"Then she'd ha' rolled over."
Not one of them offered to ride her, however; and the procession
reached the house. When it did so, Nanny broke away from Pat, and
cantered on to the barn-yard. The gate from that into the paddock was
shut, and she went over it with a splendid leap, to begin a kind of
dance around the Devon calves.
"It's mighty little good to fence in the like of her," remarked Pat.
"I'm thinkin' I'd better give the b'ye wan o' thim other cowlts."