Thomas Jefferson Brown | Page 5

"Good-by, sweetheart!" he said.
In the eyes that looked up at her, in his eyes in the one last look of love
that he said, "Good-by." Lady Isobel saw the truth, and stretched out
her arm to him.
"Stop! Come back! Take me with you!" she cried. "I want to go with

you!"
And there, in the wildness of that sea, four miles from shore, Thomas
Jefferson Brown seemed to heave himself up out of the water, as if the
strength of a thousand swimmers had suddenly come to him. He let out
a cry of triumph, of love, of joy; and he came back and gripped the
canoe again, his gray eyes flashing, his face glowing with a strange
flush.
"You want to go with me?" he said. "Come!"
He held up his arms, and with a cry that wasn't fear Lady Isobel went
into them, while Thomas Jefferson Brown called to Lord Meton:
"Stick to the canoe! It will take you to the island!"

IV
The shore was a low, dark streak, four miles away--an appalling
distance away; but as she clung lightly to his shoulders, as Thomas
Jefferson Brown told her to do, the horror and the fear of the big sea
went out of Lady Isobel's brave little heart. She put her face down
against his neck, pulled back his wet hair, and kissed him. God bless all
such true hearts, wherever they be!
"We'll make it, Tom--we'll make it!" she told him a hundred times.
He felt the warm caresses of her lips, the thrilling love of her voice, and
he knew that she was ready to die with him.
He swam in a strange way--a wonderfully strange way--did Thomas
Jefferson Brown. He stood almost erect in the water, his head and
shoulders clear; and now and then he stopped to rest, and it seemed no
test for him at all to float with the weight of the woman he loved, his
face turned up to her in those moments, her glorious blue eyes
devouring him, her sweet lips kissing him--still kissing him.

He was doing a thing that she knew no other man in the world could do.
She kept telling him so, while the land drew nearer and nearer, until at
last she cried out in joy that she could see the little bushes along the
shore.
"Another mile, Tom!" she said. "Only another mile, and then--"
"And then--" he said.
"And then--life!" she cried. "Life for you and me!"
He went on, seeming to grow stronger as the shore drew nearer. It was
wonderful; but at last, when they came to the beach, he dropped down
like a dead man. Lady Isobel caught his head to her dripping breast, and
rocked him back and forth, sobbing a paean of love and pride, while far
out she saw the canoe and Lord Meton drifting shoreward.
A few minutes later, Thomas Jefferson Brown went out into the sea
again, until he was not much more than a speck, and brought in the
canoe and Lord Meton, while Lady Isobel stood to her knees in the
water, praising her God that from riches and splendor she had come out
into a wilderness to find such a man as this.
After that, at York Factory, there was nothing left for Thomas Jefferson
Brown to do but to reveal himself, and when Lord Meton discovered
that there ran as good blood through his rescuer's veins as through his
own, he gripped hands with the man who had saved him, and gave his
congratulations cm the spot. But it made no difference to Isobel. If
anything, she was a little disappointed.
Thomas Jefferson Brown arranged to go back with them on their yacht.
The wedding would take place in London, a quiet affair. One day
Isobel and her lover came along hand in hand, and Thomas Jefferson
Brown said to me:
"Bobby, you're going to be best man."
"Not best man," Lady Isobel added, "but second best, Bobby. There's

only one best man in the world!"
But I haven't been able to come to the point of this story yet--the
remarkable part of it. Two weeks later, when we were up the river and
our canoe struck a snag, I discovered that Thomas Jefferson Brown
"couldn't swim a stroke!"
"Good Lord!" I said, but waited.
Back at the post, Thomas Jefferson Brown took me into his little room,
and said:
"Bobby, you've found that I can't swim, and I'm going to trust you with
a great secret. Love can accomplish miracles; and love did--out there.
For when I let go of the canoe, Bobby, I knew that I was going straight
down to my death. But a wonderful thing happened." He brought a little
map from a drawer. "Look at