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."
CHAPTER III.
A VERY WIDE LAKE
"This is the coolest place there is in the house," remarked Ned, as he looked around the library that hot June afternoon. "Grandmother and the rest of them have gone out to the Sewing Society. What a fuss they made! As if a bit of a swim could hurt me!"
The shelves and cases were crowded with books, and at first he did nothing but lie in a big wickerwork chair, and stare at them.
"No," he said, aloud, "I won't do any reading, not in such a sweltering day as this is. I can get out that Norway book, though, and look at the pictures."
He pulled it out, and lugged it to the table, with a strong impression upon his mind that it was a book to be carried around in January rather than in June.
"It never will be a popular book for boys," he remarked of it. "Not for small boys."
Open it came, and he began with a study of the abundant illustrations. They were fine, and they stirred him up, by degrees, until he began to feel a growing interest in the reading matter scattered along among them. It was all in large type, so that the pages might be conquered easily, one after another. Before long he found himself entirely absorbed in the narrative of the old Norse times.
"Curious lot of men they were," he remarked, "those Vikings. How they did seem to enjoy killing their enemies and cutting each other's heads off! They'd steal anything, too. Tell you what, though, if I'd been wearing one o' their coats of mail when Nanny pitched me into the lake, I'd ha' gone to the bottom like a stone. I wonder if any of 'em could swim in their armour? I don't believe they could. Most likely they took it off if they were going to be wrecked anywhere. A fellow in a steel shirt ought to have some life-preservers handy."
More and more intense became his interest as he went on, and at about tea-time his grandfather came in.
"What, Ned?" asked the old gentleman. "Are you at it yet? That's all right, but I can't let you do too much of it. You must spend all the time you can in the open air. You may read this evening, but to-morrow morning you must go fishing. You may take a book with you."
"I'll take along this one, then," said Ned. "I can read between bites."
"That's what I do sometimes," said his grandfather. "I think it averages about two books to each fish, but a pike pulled a dictionary overboard for me, once."
"What did he want of a dictionary?"
