Conny"s words about Teddy not minding Joe the gardener, or anybody else indeed, had awakened his mind to the consciousness that he had not given proper consideration to the boy"s mental training.
Teddy"s education certainly was not neglected, for he repeated his lessons regularly to his father and displayed the most promising signs of advancement; but, lessons ended, he was left entirely to the servants. The vicar reflected, that this ought not to be permitted with a child at an age when impressions of right and wrong are so easily made, never to be effaced in after life, once the budding character is formed.
He would correct this error, the vicar determined; in future he would see after him more personally!
Just as he arrived at this sound conclusion the vicar reached the bend of the lane where it sloped round by the spur of the down, a bustling b.u.mblebee making him notice this by brushing against his nose as he buzzed through the air in that self-satisfied important way that all b.u.mblebees affect in their outdoor life; and, looking over the hedge that sank down at this point, he saw a group of boys gathered round the edge of the pond.
He did not recognise Teddy amongst them; but, fancying the urchins might be able to tell him something of his movements, he made towards them, climbing through a gap in the fence and walking down the sloping side of the hill to the meadow below.
The boys, catching sight of him, immediately began to huddle together like a flock of sheep startled by the appearance of some strange dog; and he could hear them calling out some words of warning, in which his familiar t.i.tle "t"parson" could be plainly distinguished.
"The young imps must be doing something wrong, and are afraid of being found out," thought the vicar. "Never mind, though, I sha"n"t be hard on them, remembering my own young truant!"
As he got nearer, he heard the yelp of a dog as if in pain or alarm.
"They"re surely not drowning some poor animal," said the vicar aloud, uttering the new thought that flashed across his mind. "If so, I shall most certainly be severe with them; for cruelty is detestable in man or boy!"
Hurrying on, he soon obtained a clear view of the pond, and he could now see that not only were a lot of boys cl.u.s.tered together round the edge of the water, but towards the centre something was floating like a raft with apparently another boy on it, who was holding a struggling white object in his arms, from which evidently the yelps proceeded--his ears soon confirming the supposition.
"Hullo! what are you doing there?" shouted the vicar, quickening his pace. "Don"t hurt the poor dog!"
To his intense astonishment the boy on the floating substance turned his face towards him, answering his hail promptly with an explanation.
"It"s Puck, padie, and I ain"t hurting him."
Both the face and the voice were Teddy"s!
The vicar was completely astounded.
"Teddy!" he exclaimed, "can I believe my eyes?--is it really you?"
"Yes, it"s me, padie," replied the young scapegrace, trying to balance himself upright on the unsteady platform as he faced his father, but not succeeding in doing so very gracefully.
"Why, how on earth--or rather water, that would be the most correct expression," said the vicar correcting himself, being a student of Paley and a keen logician as to phraseology; "how did you get there?"
"I made a raft," explained Teddy in short broken sentences, which were interrupted at intervals through the necessary exertion he had to make every now and then to keep from tumbling into the water and hold Puck.
"I made a raft like--like Robinson Crusoe, and--and--I"ve brought Puck-- uck with me, "cause I didn"t have a parrot or a cat. I--I--I wanted to get to the island; b-b-but I can"t go any further as the raft is stuck, and--and I"ve lost my stick to push it with. Oh--I was nearly over there!"
"It would be a wholesome lesson to you if you got a good ducking!" said the vicar sternly, albeit the reminiscences of Robinson Crusoe and the fact of Teddy endeavouring to imitate that ideal hero of boyhood struck him in a comical light and he turned away to hide a smile. "Come to the bank at once, sir!"
Easy enough as it was for the vicar to give this order, it was a very different thing for Teddy, in spite of every desire on his part, to obey it; for, the moment he put down Puck on the leafy flooring of the raft, the dog began to howl, making him take it up again in his arms. To add to his troubles, also, he had dropped his sculling pole during a lurch of his floating platform, so he had nothing now wherewith to propel it either towards the island or back to the sh.o.r.e, the raft wickedly oscillating midway in the water between the two, like Mahomet"s coffin "twixt heaven and earth!
Urged on, however, by his father"s command, Teddy tried as gallantly as any shipwrecked mariner to reach land again; but, what with Puck hampering his efforts, and his brisk movements on the frail structure, this all at once separated into its original elements through the clothes-line becoming untied, leaving Teddy struggling amidst the debris of broken rails and branches--Puck ungratefully abandoning his master in his extremity and making instinctively for the sh.o.r.e.
The vicar plunged in frantically to the rescue, wading out in the mud until he was nearly out of his depth, and then swimming up to Teddy, who, clutching a portion of his dismembered raft, had managed to keep afloat; although, he was glad enough when his father"s arm was round him and he found himself presently deposited on the bank in safety, where they were now alone, all the village boys having rushed off _en ma.s.se_, yelling out the alarm at the pitch of their voices the moment Teddy fell in and the vicar went after him.
Both were in a terrible pickle though, with their garments soaking wet, of course; while the vicar especially was bedraggled with mud from head to foot, looking the most unclerical object that could be well imagined.
However, he took the whole matter good-humouredly enough, not scolding Teddy in the least.
"The best thing we can do, my son," he said when he had somewhat recovered his breath, not having gone through such violent exercise for many a long day.--"The best thing we can do is to hurry off home as fast we can, so as to arrive there before they hear anything of the accident from other sources, or the girls will be terribly alarmed about us."
Teddy, without speaking, tacitly a.s.sented to this plan by jumping up immediately and clutching hold of the shivering Puck, whose asthma, by the way, was not improved by this second involuntary ducking; and the two were hastening towards the vicarage when they heard a horse trotting behind them, Doctor Jolly riding up alongside before they had proceeded very far along the lane, after clambering out of the field where the pond was situated.
"Bless me!" cried the doctor; "why, here are you both safe and sound, when those village urchins said you and Master Teddy were drownded!"
"Ah! I thought these boys were up to something of the sort when they all scampered off in a batch without lending us a helping hand!" replied the vicar laughing. "I was just telling Teddy this, thinking the report would reach home before us."
"Aye, all happen, Vernon? "Pon my word, you"re in a fine mess!"
The vicar thereupon narrated all that had occurred, much to the doctor"s amus.e.m.e.nt.
"Well," he exclaimed at the end of the story, "that boy of yours is cut out for something, you may depend. He won"t be drowned at any rate!"
"No," said the vicar reflectively; "this is the second merciful escape he has had from the water."
"Yes, and once from fire, too," put in the other, alluding to the gunpowder episode. "He"s a regular young desperado!"
"I hope not, Jolly," hastily interposed the vicar. "I don"t like your joking about his escapades in that way. I hope he will be good--eh, my boy?" and he stroked Teddy"s head as he walked along by his side, father and son being alike hatless, their headgear remaining floating on the pond, along with the remains of the raft, to frighten the frogs and fishes.
Teddy uttered no reply; but his little heart was full, and he made many inward resolves, which, alas! his eight-year-old nature was not strong enough to keep.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
UNAPPRECIATED.
He really did not mean any harm; but mischief is mischief whether intentional or not, and somehow or other he seemed continually to be getting into it. Circ.u.mstances, over which, of course, he had no control, continually overruled his anxious desire to be good.
As Doctor Jolly said, with his usual strident hearty laugh that could be heard half a mile off, and which was so contagious that it made people smile whose thoughts were the reverse of gay, Teddy was always in hot water, "except, by Jove, when he plunged into the cold, ho, ho!"
With reference to this latter point, however, it may be mentioned here, that albeit he had twice been mercifully preserved from drowning, the vicar, while trustful enough in the divine workings of Providence, did not think it altogether right to allow Teddy"s insurance against a watery grave to be entirely dependent on chance; and so, that very evening, when Jupp came up to the house after he had done his work at the station, he broached the subject to him as soon as the worthy porter had been made cognisant of all the facts connected with the raft adventure.
"No," said the vicar, so carried away by his feelings that he almost added "my brethren," fancying himself in the pulpit delivering a homily to his congregation generally, instead of only addressing one hearer, "we ought not to neglect any wise precaution in guarding against those dangers that beset our everyday lives. Lightly spoken as the adage is, that "G.o.d helps those who help themselves," it is true enough."
"Aye, aye, sir, and so say I," a.s.sented Jupp, rather mystified as to "what the parson was a-driving at," as he mentally expressed it, by this grand beginning, and thinking it had some reference to his not being present at the pond to rescue Teddy in his peril, which he keenly regretted.
"This being my impression," continued the vicar, completing his period, as if rounding a sentence in one of his sermons, wherein he was frequently p.r.o.ne to digress, "and I"m glad to learn from your acquiescent reply that you agree with me on the main issue, eh?"
Jupp nodded his head again, although now altogether in a fog regarding the other"s meaning.
"Well, then," said the vicar, satisfied with having at last cleared the ground for stating his proposition, "I want you to devote any leisure time you may have in the course of the next few weeks to teaching my son to swim; so that, in the event of his unhappily falling into the water again, when neither you nor I may be near, he may be able to save himself--under providence, that is."
"I was just about a-thinking on the same thing, sir, when you began a- speaking," observed Jupp thoughtfully, scratching his head in his reflective way as he stood before the vicar cap in hand at the door of the study, where the conference was being held. "I fancied you didn"t like me taking him down to the river, or I"d have taught him to swim long ago, I would, sir!"
"Then I may depend on your doing so now, eh?"
"Sartenly, sir! I"ll be proud, that I will, to show him," answered Jupp eagerly, mightily pleased with the task intrusted to him, having long wished to undertake it; and so, he being willing, and his pupil nothing loth, Teddy was in a comparatively short s.p.a.ce so well instructed how to support himself in the water that he was quite capable of swimming across the river without fear of being sucked down into the mill-race-- although he made both his father and Jupp a promise, which he honourably kept, of never bathing there unless accompanied by either of the two.