them.
"Hold there!" shouted John at the top of his voice; "throw that rope out and I will pull you in!"
It was a hard tug: I shuddered to see him wade knee-deep in the stream—but he succeeded. Both gentlemen leaped safe on shore. The younger tried desperately to save his boat, but it was too late. Already the "water-boar" had clutched it—the rope broke like a gossamer-thread—the trim, white sail was dragged down—rose up once, broken and torn, like a butterfly caught in a mill-stream—then disappeared.
"So it's all over with her, poor thing!"
"Who cares?—We might have lost our lives," sharply said the other, an older and sickly-looking gentleman, dressed in mourning, to whom life did not seem a particularly pleasant thing, though he appeared to value it so highly.
They both scrambled up the Mythe, without noticing John Halifax: then the elder turned.
"But who pulled us ashore? Was it you, my young friend?"
John Halifax, emptying his soaked boots, answered, "I suppose so."
"Indeed, we owe you much."
"Not more than a crown will pay," said young Brithwood, gruffly; "I know him, Cousin March. He works in Fletcher the Quaker's tan-yard."
"Nonsense!" cried Mr. March, who had stood looking at the boy with a kindly, even half-sad air. "Impossible! Young man, will you tell me to whom I am so much obliged?"
"My name is John Halifax."
"Yes; but WHAT are you?"
"What he said. Mr. Brithwood knows me well enough: I work in the tan-yard."
"Oh!" Mr. March turned away with a resumption of dignity, though evidently both surprised and disappointed. Young Brithwood laughed.
"I told you so, cousin. Hey, lad!" eyeing John over, "you've been out at grass, and changed your coat for the better: but you're certainly the same lad that my curricle nearly ran over one day; you were driving a cart of skins—pah! I remember."
"So do I," said John, fiercely; but when the youth's insolent laughter broke out again he controlled himself. The laughter ceased.
"Well, you've done me a good turn for an ill one, young—what's-your-name, so here's a guinea for you." He threw it towards him; it fell on the ground, and lay there.
"Nay, nay, Richard," expostulated the sickly gentleman, who, after all, WAS a gentleman. He stood apparently struggling with conflicting intentions, and not very easy in his mind. "My good fellow," he said at last, in a constrained voice, "I won't forget your bravery. If I could do anything for you—and meanwhile if a trifle like this"—and he slipped something into John's hand.
John returned it with a bow, merely saying "that he would rather not take any money."
The gentleman looked very much astonished. There was a little more of persistence on one side and resistance on the other; and then Mr. March put the guineas irresolutely back into his pocket, looking the while lingeringly at the boy—at his tall figure, and flushed, proud face.
"How old are you?"
"Fifteen, nearly."
"Ah!" it was almost a sigh. He turned away, and turned back again. "My name is March—Henry March; if you should ever—"
"Thank you, sir. Good-day."
"Good-day." I fancied he was half inclined to shake hands—but John did not, or would not, see it. Mr. March walked on, following young Brithwood; but at the stile he turned round once more and glanced at John. Then they disappeared.
"I'm glad they're gone: now we can be comfortable." He flung himself down, wrung out his wet stockings, laughed at me for being so afraid he would take cold, and so angry at young Brithwood's insults. I sat wrapped in my cloak, and watched him making idle circles in the sandy path with the rose-switch he had cut.
A thought struck me. "John, hand me the stick and I'll give you your first writing lesson."
So there, on the smooth gravel, and with the rose-stem for a pen, I taught him how to form the letters of the alphabet and join them together. He learned them very quickly—so quickly, that in a little while the simple copy-book that Mother Earth obliged us with was covered in all directions with "J O H N—John."
"Bravo!" he cried, as we turned homeward, he flourishing his gigantic pen, which had done such good service; "bravo! I have gained something to-day!"
Crossing the bridge over the Avon, we stood once more to look at the waters that were "out." They had risen considerably, even in that short time, and were now pouring in several new channels, one of which was alongside of the high road; we stopped a good while watching it. The current was harmless enough, merely flooding a part of the Ham; but it awed us to see the fierce power of waters let loose. An old willow-tree, about whose roots I had often watched the king-cups growing, was now in the centre of a stream as broad as the Avon by our tan-yard, and thrice as rapid. The torrent rushed round it—impatient of the divisions its great roots caused—eager to undermine and tear it up. Inevitably, if the flood did not abate, within a few hours more there would be nothing left of the fine old tree.
"I don't quite like this," said John, meditatively, as his quick eye swept down the course of the river, with the houses and wharves that abutted on it, all along one bank. "Did you ever see the waters thus high before?"
"Yes, I believe I have; nobody minds it at Norton Bury; it is only the sudden thaw, my father says, and he ought to know, for he has had plenty of experience, the tan-yard being so close to the river."
"I was thinking of that; but come, it's getting cold."
He took me safe home, and we parted cordially—nay, affectionately—at my own door.
"When will you come again, David?"
"When your father sends me."
And I felt that HE felt that our intercourse was always to be limited to this. Nothing clandestine, nothing obtrusive, was possible, even for friendship's sake, to John Halifax.
My father came in late that evening; he looked tired and uneasy, and instead of going to bed, though it was after nine o'clock, sat down to his pipe in the chimney-corner.
"Is the river rising still, father? Will it do any harm to the tan-yard?"
"What dost thee know about the tan-yard!"
"Only John Halifax was saying—"
"John Halifax had better hold his tongue."
I held mine.
My father puffed away in silence till I came to bid him good-night. I think the sound of my crutches on the floor stirred him out of a long meditation, in which his ill-humour had ebbed away.
"Where didst thee go out to-day, Phineas?—thee and the lad I sent."
"To the Mythe:" and I told him the incident that had happened there. He listened without reply.
"Wasn't
