“What’s he up to now?” he asked.

“Thee may haud thee tongue if thee can do nought,” said a mill-girl who had come up.  “I reckon he knows what he’s efter better nor thee.”  She had pushed to the front, and was crouched upon the edge, and seemed very much excited.  “GOD bless him for trying to save t’ best lad in t’ village i’ any fashion, say I!  There’s them that’s nearer kin to him and not so kind.”

Perhaps the strict justice of this taunt prevented a reply (for there lurks some fairness in the roughest of us), or perhaps the crowd, being chiefly men knew from experience that there are occasions when it is best to let a woman say her say.

“Ye see he’s trying to spread hisself out,” John Binder explained in pacific tones.  “I reckon he thinks it’ll bear him if he shifts half of his weight on to his hands.”

The girl got nearer to the mason, and looked up at him with her eyes full of tears.

“Thank ye, John,” she said.  “D’ye think he’ll get him out?”

“Maybe he will, my lass.  He’s a man that knows what he’s doing.  I’ll say so much for him.”

“Nay!” added the mason sorrowfully.  “Th’ ice ’ll never hold him—­his hand’s in—­and there goes his knee.  Maester! maester!” he shouted, “come off! come off!” and many a voice besides mine echoed him, “Come off! come off!”

The girl got John Binder by the arm, and said hoarsely, “Fetch him off!  He’s a reight good ’un—­over good to be drownded, if—­if it’s of no use.”  And she sat down on the bank, and pulled her mill-shawl over her head, and cried as I had never seen any one cry before.

I was so busy watching her that I did not see that Mr. Wood had got back to the bank.  Several hands were held out to help him, but he shook his head and said—­“Got a knife?”

Two or three jack-knives were out in an instant.  He pointed to the alder thicket.  “I want two poles,” he said, “sixteen feet long, if you can, and as thick as my wrist at the bottom.”

“All right, sir.”

He sat down on the bank, and I rushed up and took one of his cold wet hands in both mine, and said, “Please, please, don’t go on any more.”

“He must be dead ever so long ago,” I added, repeating what I had heard.

“He hasn’t been in the water ten minutes,” said the school-master, laughing, “Jack!  Jack! you’re not half ready for travelling yet.  You must learn not to lose your head and your heart and your wits and your sense of time in this fashion, if you mean to be any good at a pinch to yourself or your neighbours.  Has the rope come?”

“No, sir.”

“Those poles?” said the school-master, getting up.

“They’re here!” I shouted, as a young forest of poles came towards us, so willing had been the owners of the jack-knives.  The thickest had been cut by the heavy man, and Mr. Wood took it first.

“Thank you, friend,” he said.  The man didn’t speak, and he turned his back as usual, but he gave a sideways surly nod before he turned.  The school-master chose a second pole, and then pushed both before him right out on to the ice, in such a way that with the points touching each other they formed a sort of huge A, the thicker ends being the nearer to the bank.