The Jungle Fugitives: A Tale of Life and Adventure in India<br />Including also Many Stories of Amer, Ellis [ebook reader online txt] 📗

I looked at the clock; it was a few minutes past five, and Bob ought to have been home long ago. What made him so late?

My fear was growing more intense every minute. The boy was in my mind continually to the exclusion of everything else. Despite all my philosophy and rigid common-sense, the conviction was fastening on me that something dreadful had befallen him.

And what was that something? He had been drowned in the mill-pond. I glanced out of the window, half expecting to see a party bearing the lifeless body homeward. Thank Heaven, I was spared that woful sight, but I discerned something else that sent a misgiving pang through me.

It was Mrs. Clarkson, our nearest neighbor, rapidly approaching, as if the bearer of momentous tidings.

"She has come to tell me that Bob is drowned," I gasped, as my heart almost ceased its beating.

I met her on the threshold, with a calmness of manner which belied the tumult within. Greeting her courteously, I invited her inside, stating that my wife was absent.

"I thank you," she said, "but it is not worth while. I thought I ought to come over and tell you."

"Tell me what?" I inquired, swallowing the lump in my throat.

"Why, about the awful dream I had last night."

I was able to smile faintly, and was partly prepared for what was coming.

"I am ready to hear it, Mrs. Clarkson."

"Why, you know it was Friday night, and I never had a dream on a Friday night that didn't come true—never! Where's Bob?" she abruptly asked, peering around me, as if to learn whether he was in the hall.

"He's off somewhere at play."

"Oh, Mr. Havens, you'll never see him alive again!"

Although startled in spite of myself, I was indignant.

"Have you any positive knowledge, Mrs. Clarkson, on the matter?"

"Certainly I have; didn't I just tell you about my dream?"

"A fudge for your dream!" I exclaimed, impatiently; "I don't believe in any such nonsense."

"I pity you," she said, though why I should be pitied on that account is hard to understand.

"But what was your dream?"

"I saw your Bob brought home drowned. Oh, I can see him now," she added, speaking rapidly, and making a movement as if to wring her hands; "his white face—his dripping hair and clothes—his half-closed eyes—it was dreadful; it will break his mother's heart—"

"Mrs. Clarkson, did you come here to tell me that?"

"Why, of course I did; I felt it was my duty to prepare you—"

"Good day," I answered, sharply, closing the door and hastily entering my study.

She had given me a terrible shock. My feelings were in a tumult difficult to describe. My philosophy, my self-command, my hard sense and scepticism were scattered to the winds, I had fought against the awful fear, and was still fighting when my neighbor called; but her visit had knocked every prop from beneath me.

She had hardly disappeared when I was hurrying through the woods by the shortest route to the mill-pond. I knew Bob had been there, and all that I expected to find was his white, ghastly body in the cold, cruel depths.

"Oh, my boy!" I wailed, "I am to blame for your death! I never should have permitted you to run into such danger. I should have gone with you and taught you to swim—I can never forgive myself for this—never, never, never. It will break your mother's heart—mine is already broken—"

"Pop, just watch me!"

Surely that was the voice of my boy! I turned my head like a flash, and there he was, with his hands together over his head, and in the act of diving into the mill-pond. Down he went with a splash, his head quickly reappearing, as he flirted the hair and water out of his eyes, and struck out for the middle of the pond.

"What are you doing, Bob?"

"You just wait and see, pop."

And what did that young rascal do but swim straight across that pond and then turn about and swim back again, without pausing for breath? Not only that, but, when in the very deepest portion, he dove, floated on his back, trod water, and kicked up his heels like a frisky colt.

"How's that, pop? You didn't know I could swim, did you?" he asked, as he came smilingly up the bank.

"I had no idea of such a thing," I replied, my whole being fluttering with gratitude and delight; "I think I'll have to reward you for that."

And when he had donned his clothes, and we started homeward, I slipped a twisted bank-bill into his hands. I am really ashamed to tell its denomination, and Bob and I never hinted anything about it to his mother.

And now as to the question, Who shall explain it? I think I can. I have a weakness for boiled beef and cabbage. The meat is healthful enough, but, as every one knows, or ought to know, cabbage, although one of the most digestible kinds of food when raw, is just the opposite in a boiled state. I knew the consequences of eating it, but in the absence of my good wife that day I disposed of so much that I deserved the oppressive indigestion that followed.

That fact, I am convinced, fully explains the dreadful "presentiment" which made me so miserable all the afternoon.

On our way home we passed the house of Mrs. Clarkson. I could not forbear stopping and ringing her bell. She answered it in person.

"Mrs. Clarkson, Bob is on his way home from swimming, and I thought I would let him hear about that wonderful dream—"

But the door was slammed in my face.

I said at the opening of this sketch that I "had" a boy named Bob. God be thanked, I have him yet, and no lustier, brighter, or more manly youth ever lived, and my prayer is that he may be spared to soothe the declining years of his father and mother, whose love for him is beyond the power of words to tell.