42 THE OLD SPONE MANSION.
“He’s not a parson, I'll bet on that; for he looked into the billiard-room, last night, when I was there; and I asked him to play, for all you fellers were dancing and I was deuced hard run——”
“And he played?”
“Yes! and beat me. Beat me easy. He’s somebody, let me tell you; for Senator Clare and the governor both came in, staid till the game was over, and then took him away with them to talk. They wouldn't do that with any of us. I saw them, an hour after, sitting together in the shadow of the piazza. You'd better not be quite so free-and-easy with him, Jones.”
“Who can he be?” cried the young ladies. “Has any one heard his name?”
It is an animated and often amusing sight, when fifty or a hundred persons, of all ages and in every variety of dress, are sporting in the surf: the young shouting with fun and excitement, while the old gravely go through with the bath as if it was the most serious affair in life. One cannot, at first, recognize one’s most intimate acquaintances. The tall, willowy belle of the drawing-room has lost the cloud-like amplitude of lace and muslin, which distinguished her the night before, and is converted into a walking mummy, in red and blue woolen Bloomers; an oil-skin cap on her head, no shoes to her feet, her thin person at the mercy of the breeze. The stately dame, lately compressed into that ‘love of a basque,' is revealed in all her huge proportions, and wallows over the sand, toward the surf, in her yellow-brown bathing-dress, quivering all over like calves-foot jelly. Then the cunning look of the babies!
I had taken a book with me, and after watching the scene awhile, began to read, occasionally looking up to see how Rosalie enjoyed the bath. The little thing was in high glee, and far out among the breakers: where, catching sight of me, she clapped her tiny hands and laughed. I smiled back, and wished, for the moment, I had bathed too; for the waves came rolling in quick and crisp, and everybody was wild with delight. To shut out the temptation I turned again to my book.
Suddenly there was a startling cry. I looked up. The bathers were hurrying in shore: the women screaming; the men pale, but silent With an instinctive fear I searched the crowd for Rosalie and her nurse. They were not to be seen. But I beheld, beyond the breakers, a woman’s form, sinking and struggling; I caught the gleam of a child's golden hair; and I hear the cry, “they are drowning,” repeated by half score of voices, all in one breath. Yet though there were twenty men among the bathers, all were hastening in shore, the boastful Jones leading the terrified pack, and actually treading down helpless females in his way.
I sprang to my feet, and with a wild cry was rushing to the bank, when a strong arm restrained me. It was that of Mr. Talbot.
At any other time his presence would have embarrassed me, but now I thought only of Rosalie.
“Oh! save ber,” I oried, clasping my hands, “save her!”
He seemed to comprehend everything at once. Throwing off his coat, he leaped down the bank, ran swiftly across the beach, denuding himself of cravat and vest as he went; stopped an instant, on the edge of the surf, to remove his shoes: and plunged in. The next moment he was far out among the breakers.
I watched him breathlessly. He reached the nurse just as she was going down for the last time, caught her, and turned to come in. But at that instant, an enormous billow swept over them; and the whole three went under.
Twenty voices were speaking at once. I heard every one of them, and recognized most of the speakers, though I never took my eyes from the breakers. The nurse was being censured by all. She had been warned, one said, not to go out so far, but had disregarded everybody, and had finally got into a hole, and lost her footing, and with it her presence of mind. A current, which ran just outside the breakers, another added. had swept her, in a moment after, far beyond her depth. Mr. Talbot, one of the gentlemen said, was in this current now, and would never get out of it alive, “for I saw the nurse,” he continued, “catch him about the neck as he went down.” A by-stander suggested that if a boat could be launched, something might yet be done. But a dozen voices answered that there were no fishermen about, and that nobody else could steer a boat through the surf: besides, the nearest boat was three hundred yards off. The attempt to save the nurse and child, another declared, had been madness from the first. It was the craven Jones, that spoke, for I recognized his voice.
Hours seemed to elapse while these things were being said. But the drowning persons did not reappear. The great wave, which had carried them under, rashed shorewards, and spent itself at the very feet of the fugitives. Another, and another came racing in. Suddenly, in a trough of the sea, far out, I saw an arm dashed upwards; it held aloft a child’s form, which I recognized as Resalie’s; and it was followed imme-
