“It’s an old quarry,” said I.

“I know now.  We went down well, and I squeezed his throat as we went.  As soon as he was still we naturally rose, and I turned on my back and got him by the head.  I looked about for the hole, and saw it glimmering above me like a moon in a fog, and then up we came.”

When they did come up, our joy was so great that for the moment we felt as if all was accomplished; but far the hardest part really was to come.  When the school-master clutched the poles once more, and drove one under the lad’s arms and under his own left arm, and so kept his burden afloat whilst he broke a swimming path for himself with the other, our admiration of his cleverness gave place to the blessed thought that it might now be possible to help him.  The sight of the poles seemed suddenly to suggest it, and in a moment every spare pole had been seized, and, headed by our heavy friend, eight or ten men plunged in, and, smashing the ice before them, waded out to meet the school-master.  On the bank we were dead silent; in the water they neither stopped nor spoke till it was breast high round their leader.

I have often thought, and have always felt quite sure, that if the heavy man had gone on till the little grey waves and the bits of ice closed over him, not a soul of those who followed him would—­nay, could—­have turned back.  Heroism, like cowardice, is contagious, and I do not think there was one of us by that time who would have feared to dare or grudged to die.

As it was, the heavy man stood still and shouted for the rope.  It had come, and perhaps it was not the smallest effect of the day’s teaching, that those on the bank paid it out at once to those in the water till it reached the leader, without waiting to ask why he wanted it.  The grace of obedience is slow to be learnt by disputatious northmen, but we had had some hard teaching that afternoon.

When the heavy man got the rope he tied the middle part of it round himself, and, coiling the shorter end, he sent it, as if it had been a quoit, skimming over the ice towards the school-master.  As it unwound itself it slid along, and after a struggle Mr. Wood grasped it.  I fancy he fastened it round the lad’s body; and got his own hands freer to break the ice before them.  Then the heavy man turned, and the long end of the line, passing from hand to hand in the water, was seized upon the bank by every one who could get hold of it.  I never was more squeezed and buffeted in my life; but we fairly fought for the privilege of touching if it were but a strand of the rope that dragged them in.

And a flock of wild birds, resting on their journey at the other end of the mill-dam, rose in terror and pursued their seaward way; so wild and so prolonged were the echoes of that strange, speechless cry in which collective man gives vent to overpowering emotion.

It is odd, when one comes to think of it, but I know it is true, for two sensible words would have stuck in my own throat and choked me, but I cheered till I could cheer no longer.