"What a coward you are!" said Irene. "It is the most awful fun to be out on the lake in a storm like this. Ah! do you hear that growl?"
"But I can"t manage the boat a bit."
"I thought all boys could manage boats. You don"t expect a girl to do it--a girl out in the midst of a storm of this sort? Besides, I must put up my umbrella or I shall be soaked."
"But I told you it would rain. You shouldn"t have come out," said Hughie, who felt more annoyed, distressed, and angry than he had ever felt in his life before. He felt that suddenly the boat was quite unmanageable, that it was rocking and racing and taking them he did not know where.
All of a sudden Irene sprang to her feet.
"Get back into the stern," she said. "Sit quite still, and let me take the oars. I wanted to see if you could row. I see you can"t. There is another flash of lightning. Don"t be frightened. I know you are; but try to keep it under. I have something to say to you."
She seated herself, and the two children faced each other. The flash of lightning was followed by a crashing peal of thunder. The trees bowed low to meet the gale; the frightened birds, the swans and others, took shelter where they could best find it; but as yet there was not a drop of rain.
"How hot it is!" said Irene. "Let us fly down the stream."
"What do you mean by that?" said Hughie, whose freckled face was deadly white.
"I will tell you if you like; but don"t speak."
He looked at her with fascinated eyes. In her red dress, with her witch-like face and glancing, dancing, naughty eyes, she became to him for the moment an object of absolute terror. Was this the gentle and exceedingly pretty girl whom little Agnes so adored? He was alone with her, and they were, so to speak, flying through the water, although she scarcely touched the oars, allowing them to lie almost idle by her side.
Suddenly she shipped them and bent toward him.
"We needn"t row any more," she said. "We are in the current. The current will take us. Hughie, can you swim?"
"I don"t know anything about swimming," he said.
"Well, that is rather bad for you; for in about five minutes of this sort of thing we go right down the cascade at the end of the lake and among the breakers. The boat will be upset, and you will have to fight for your life, unless I choose to save you. I could save you, for I have perfect control of myself in the water."
"But you don"t mean to say you are going to do anything of that sort!
Can"t we get into the calmer part of the lake? I don"t understand you,"
said Hughie.
"But I understand you. You don"t like me, and I don"t like you. From the very first you have been disagreeable. I like your little sister, but you don"t want me to like her."
"Well, I think you are a bit rough on old Em," was Hughie"s remark.
"What a flash that was!" said Irene; and her eyes danced with cruel pleasure. "Ah! here comes the rain."
A terrific hail-shower drenched the two children as they sat within the rocking boat. For the first time in her life Irene was really slightly frightened. Had she dared too much? Even she might not be able to get the boat out of the current just at present; and if she did not, and they really got among the breakers and over the cascade in the present storm, it might be beyond her power to save Hughie. As to herself, she was not at all afraid. She felt she could swim through anything and over anything; but she was not certain that she could swim and support a boy so big and strong as Hughie.
Then there rose before her vision the face of Rosamund--Rosamund"s face with its n.o.ble expression, its clear, steadfast, dark eyes--Rosamund with her ringing voice. Oh, what influence for good she had exercised over Irene"s wild, worthless, almost terrible life, and yet she was disobeying all her precepts now, and frightening poor Hughie almost to death!
"I tell you what it is," she said in a husky voice; "we will both try to get out of this current if you will make me a promise."
"It seems to me that I am spending my whole life in making promises,"
said Hughie. "But I will make any promise if that will help you now. Oh, what a flash that was! I expect we shall both be struck by the lightning."
"I suppose that doesn"t matter. I suppose you are not afraid to die, are you?"
"I haven"t thought of it," said the boy. "People of fourteen don"t think much about dying, do they? But I don"t think I"d be specially afraid. It might be a sort of relief to poor old Em to have only one of us to keep. But for you there is your mother and little Agnes."
"Yes; I wouldn"t like to die on account of little Agnes," replied Irene very gravely. "I love her just as though she were my own little child."
"Well, I am her brother. I suppose you ought to be pleasant to me because I happen to be her brother, and Emily happens to be her sister,"
retorted the lad.
"That is true enough. I will tell you why I did this. I brought you out into the current to test your courage. If I do nothing, if we both sit still as we are now, in all probability you will be drowned; but if you will exert yourself and help me with all your might and main, then I will respect you as a truly courageous person, and perhaps we"ll be better friends than we have hitherto been."
"What do you want me to do? I will do anything," said the boy.
"Well, look here. I will take one oar and you take the other, and we must get out of this current whatever happens. As soon as we are out of it we are safe. Oh, never mind the lightning, and don"t listen to the thunder."
"It almost blinds me," said Hughie, pa.s.sing his hand across his eyes as he spoke, dazzled by the vividness of the ever-increasing storm. Irene gave him strict directions.
"You are strong," she said. "When you see me pull, you must pull, too, and you must be very quick, for the nearer we get to the cascade the swifter runs the current. On a calm day I could save you, there wouldn"t be a bit of fear; but on a rough day, in a storm like this, I mightn"t be able to manage it. Now then, a strong pull, and a pull all together!"
The boy obeyed her directions. Whatever she might have thought of him a minute ago, he was indeed no coward. He pulled with all his might and main. Irene did likewise, and in a few minutes" time they were out of the dangerous current, in smooth water. But it was a close shave, and the girl"s hands trembled and for a minute she dropped her oar.
"Never mind," she said to Hughie.
"But you look as white as death, just as though you would faint. Did that last flash touch your hair? It seemed to me that it was almost hot on my cheeks."
"No, it wasn"t that; and the storm is going off," said Irene. "Somehow I am ashamed of myself. I oughtn"t to have been so mean."
"Please tell me."
"I have tested you, and you are brave. You are not a coward like poor Carter."
"Who is Carter?"
"A governess I once had. I took her on to the lake, and into the central current, and she was in such terror! I wanted her to go away, and I wouldn"t get out of the current, however hard she implored. But I promised to save her when we got among the breakers if only she would go afterward. She promised, and I did save her, and she is all right now; and Frosty--your dear Emily, I mean--and she are the best of friends.
And I am friendly with her, too. I have been much better lately--much better since dear Rosamund came--only somehow I felt that you defied me, and I wanted to test you. I have tested you, and I respect you, for you weren"t really frightened that time, and you did row all right. What a strong arm you have! I wish I had an arm like that."
Hughie colored with absolute pleasure.
"You are a plucky un," he said; "but I didn"t know that you really wanted to drown me."
"Of course I didn"t want to drown you. I knew a storm was coming on, and that it would be very rough in the current to-day, and I wanted to test you; and you have proved worthy of the test, and we are in safe water now. The storm is dying away, too; and shall it be _pax_? Shall we be friends for the remainder of your stay at The Follies?"
"I think you are a splendid girl, although you are quite the queerest I ever came across," said the boy.
"And you are awfully plucky. Now, I tell you what it is. Mothery and I will do our best to make you a gentleman by and by. You won"t be too proud if mother and I help Frosty--your Emily, as you call her--to make you into something better than a counter-jumper?"
"Would you indeed?" he asked, his eyes glowing, and the color coming into his cheeks. "You know, I always hated the thought of it, for my people were gentry. My mother was such a refined woman, something like sweet little Agnes, and it always cut me to the very heart to think that I was going down in the social scale."
"You sha"n"t," said Irene. And now the pair, dripping wet, landed at the little landing-stage.
Hughie helped Irene to put the boat into the boat-house, and then they stood there together until the storm died away, and the rain had ceased, and the birds were singing once more. Then they silently shook hands each with the other, without uttering a word.