Part 15

At that time of the year, except very occasionally, the river was free from boaters and the fishers who told of the fish that used to be got there in other times, so there was nothing to do but wait until my absence caused anxiety, when some one would surely come after me. Not a very alarming plight if one were well, but I felt one of my old cruel attacks was at hand, which was not encouraging. No one was within sight, but in case there should be a ploughman over a rise within hearing, I coo-eed long and well. My voice had been trained. I coo-eed three times, allowing an interval to elapse, and then settled into the bottom of the boat to await developments. Soon I was disturbed by the plunk! plunk! of a swimmer, and saw a young man approaching by strong rapid strokes. It is strange how hard it is to recognise any one when only their face is above water and one meets them in an unexpected place, and though this face seemed familiar there was nothing unusual in that, as I knew so many theatre patrons' faces in a half fashion. My rescuer having ascertained the simple nature of my dilemma, and easily gaining the boat by reason of the log, exclaimed--

"Why, it's never you! What on earth are you doing here?" and I responded--

"Ernest Breslaw! It's never you! What are you doing here? I'm stuck on this log."

"And I've come to get you off it," he laughed.

"Yes, but otherwise? This may be a suitable cove for a damaged hull, but what can a newly-launched cruiser like you be doing here?"

"I'm in training, and was just taking a plunge; it's first-class!" he said enthusiastically, and looking at his splendid muscles, enough to delight the eye of even such a connoisseur in physique as myself, and well displayed by a neat bathing-suit, there was no need to inquire for what he was in training. 'Twas no drivelling pen-and-ink examination such as I could have passed myself, but something needing a Greek statue's strength of thew.

"Are you feeling ill?" he considerately inquired, and as I assured him to the contrary, though I was feeling far from normal, he put me out on the bank while he rowed up stream for his clothes and returned to take me home. Having encased himself in some serviceable tweeds and a blue guernsey, he rolled me in his coat ere beginning to demolish the homeward mile--an infinitesimal bagatelle to such a magnificent pair of arms. I enjoyed the play of the broad shoulders and ruddy cheeks, and did not talk, neither did he. He was an athlete, not a conversationalist, while I was a conversationalist lacking sufficient athletic strength to keep up my reputation just then.

"It was very silly of you to come out alone or attempt to row in your state of health! It might have been your death," he presently remarked in a grandfatherly style. "Where are you putting up?"

"At Clay's."

"I know; the old place with the boats," he replied as the Alice whizzed along.

"I was aching for diversion," I said, in excuse for the rashness of my act.

"Well, I can take you for a pull now. I'll be here for a few weeks. Will you come to-morrow afternoon? Would three o'clock suit you?" he inquired as he moored. "The scenery is magnificent farther up the river."

"Yes, if I'm not here at three o'clock you'll know that I'm not able to come. You are very good, Ernest, to waste time with me."

"I'm only too proud to be able to row you about and expend a little despised brute force in returning all the entertainment with brains in it you have given me in the past."

"Yes, at the cost of anything under 7s. 6d. an evening,--am I to pay you that for rowing me?"

"Put it in the hospital-box," he said with a laugh that displayed his strong white teeth between his firm bold lips. He was altogether a sight that was more than good in my eyes.

I found I was not strong enough to spring ashore, but young Breslaw managed that and my transit up the steep bank to the house with an ease and gentleness so dear to woman's heart, that the strength to accomplish it is the secret of an athlete being in ninety per cent of cases a woman's ideal.

"Oh, I say," as he was leaving me at the gate, "if you mention me, speak of me as R. Ernest, as I've dropped the Breslaw where I'm staying. I don't want wind of my being here to get into the papers. I'm practising in the dark, as I'd like to give some of the cracks a surprise licking."

"Very well, I'm under an alias too, so please don't forget. To all except a few theatre patrons I'm as dead as ditch-water; but some one might recognise the old name, and it would be very unpleasant."

"Right O! To-morrow at three, then, I'll give you a pull," he said, doffing his cap from his heavy ruddy locks, now drying into waves and gleaming a rival hue in the setting sun, as he bounded down the bank and made his way along the river-edge to the bridge, as his place of sojourn was farther up than Clay's and on the other side.

The excitement of thus meeting him had somewhat revived me, for here at once, as though in response to my wish, was a fitting knight to play a leading role with my young lady, the desire for whose wellbeing had taken grip of me. For her sweet sake, and the sake of the fragrant manliness of the stalwart and deserving knight, I straightway resolved to enter the thankless and precarious business of matchmaking, one in which I had not had one iota of experience; but as women have to ace marriage, domesticity, and mostly all the issues of life assigned them, without training, I did not give up heart. As a first effort I determined that Dawn should chaperon me when I went for my row on the morrow. As I looked at the sun sinking behind the blue hills and shedding a wonderfully mellow light over the broad valley, I thought of my own life, in which there had been none to pull a heart-easing string, and the bitterness of those to whom that for which they had fought has been won so late as to be Dead Sea fruit, took possession of me.

The doctors had several long and fee-inspiring terms for my malady, but I knew it to be an old-fashioned ailment known as heart-break--the result of disappointment, want of affection, and over-work. The old bitterness gripped the organ of life then; it brought me to my knees. I tried to call out, but it was unavailing. Sharp, fiendish pain, and then oblivion.

EIGHT.

GRANDMA TURNS NURSE.

When I came to it was dark enough for lights, Dawn's well-moulded hands were supporting my head, Grandma Clay's voice was sternly engineering affairs, and Andrew was blubbering at the foot of the bed on which I was resting.

I tried to tell them there was no cause for alarm, and to beg grandma's pardon for turning her house into a "sick hospital," but though not quite unconscious, I appeared entirely so.

"I wish you had sense to have gone for Dr Tinker when Dr Smalley wasn't in," said the old lady, with nothing but solicitude in her voice.

The sternness in evidence when I had been trying to gain entrance to her house was entirely absent.