Austin and His Friends | Page 9

time?" said
Lubin, looking up.
"Very hot," replied Austin. "I wonder what time it is?"
Lubin glanced up at the sundial. "Just five minutes past the hour, or
thereabouts, I make it."
"Oh, Lubin, let's go and bathe!" cried Austin suddenly. "You must be
far hotter than I am. There's plenty of time--we don't lunch till half-past
one. How long would it take us to get to the bathing-pool just at the
bend of the river?"
"Well--not above ten minutes, I should say," was Lubin's answer. "I'd
like a dip myself more'n a little, but I'm not quite sure if I ought to--you
see the mistress wants all this finished up by the afternoon, and
then----"
"But you must!" insisted Austin. "You forget that I've only got one leg,
so I can't swim as I used, and you've got to come and take care I don't
get drowned. 'O weep for Adonais--he is dead!' How angry Aunt
Charlotte would be. And then she'd cry, poor dear, and go into hideous
mourning for her poor Austin. Come along, Lubin--but wait, I must just
go and get a couple of towels. Oh, I'm simply mad for the water. I'll be
back in less than a flash."
Lubin drove his spade into the earth, turned down his sleeves, and
rested--a fair-skinned, bronzed, wholesome object, good to look
at--while Austin stumped away. In less than five minutes the two
youths started off together, tramping through the long, lush
meadow-grass which lay between the end of the garden and the river.
The sun burned fiercely overhead, and the air quivered in the heat.
"Isn't it wonderful!" cried Austin, when they reached the edge of the
water, and were standing under the shade of some trees that overhung
the towing-path. "Come, Lubin, strip--I'm half undressed already. Look
at the white and purple lights in the water--aren't they marvellous? Now
we're going right down into them. Oh the freedom of air, and colour,
and body--how I do hate clothes! I say, how funny my stump looks,
doesn't it? Just like a great white rolling-pin. You must go in first,
Lubin, and then you'll be prepared to catch me when I begin
drowning."
Lubin, standing nude and shapely, like a fair Greek statue, for a
moment on the bank, took a silent header and disappeared. Then Austin

prepared to follow. He tumbled rather than plunged into the water, and,
unable to attain an erect position owing to his imperfect organism,
would have fared badly if Lubin had not caught him in his arms and
turned him deftly over on his back.
"You just content yourself with floating face upwards, Sir," he said.
"There's no sort of use in trying to strike out, you'd only sink to the
bottom like a boat with a hole in it. There--let me hold you like this;
one hand'll do it. Look out for the river-weeds. Now try and work your
foot. Seems to be making you go round and round, somehow. But that
don't matter. A bathe's a bathe, all said and done. How jolly cool it is!"
"Isn't it exquisite?" murmured Austin, with closed eyes. "I do think that
drowning must be a lovely death. We're like the minnows, Lubin,
'staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams, to taste the luxury of
sunny beams tempered with coolness.' That's what our wavy bodies are
doing now. Don't you like it? 'Now more than ever it seems rich to
die----'"
But the next moment, owing probably to Lubin having lost his
equilibrium, the young rhapsodist found himself, spluttering and
half-choked, nearer to the bed of the river than the surface, while his
leg was held in chancery by a network of clinging water-weeds. Lubin
had some slight difficulty in extricating him, and for the moment, at
least, his poetic fantasies came to an abrupt and unromantic finish.
"Here, get on my back, and I'll swim you out as far as them
water-lilies," said Lubin, giving him a dexterous hoist. "I'm awfully
keen on the yellow sort, and they look wonderful fine ones. That's
better. Now, Sir, you can just imagine yourself any drownded heathen
as comes into your head, only hold tight and don't stir. If you do you'll
get drownded in good earnest, and I shall have to settle accounts with
your aunt afterwards. Are you ready? Right, then. And now away we
go."
He struck out strongly and slowly, with Austin crouching on his
shoulders. They arrived in safety at the point aimed at, and managed to
tear away a grand cluster of the great, beautiful yellow flowers; but the
process was a very ticklish one, and the struggle resulted, not
unnaturally, in Austin becoming dislodged from his not very secure
position, and floundering head foremost into the depths. Lubin caught
him