Boarding schools -- Juvenile fiction; Hockey -- Juvenile fiction; Teenage boys -- Juvenile fiction
Over turned the ice-cake and the boy’s body settled with it into the
water, but one straining hand was on the gunwale and Toby had secured
a tight hold on his jacket. The skiff careened as the ice-cake slowly
righted again, Toby pulled with every ounce of strength remaining in
his body and, somehow, the boy came sprawling, inch by inch, into the
boat to lie finally face-up in six inches of water on the bottom while
Toby, scarcely knowing what he did, fixed his oars again and pulled
mechanically for the shore. And as he labored with lungs bursting,
muscles aching and eyes half-closed the perfectly absurd thought came
to him that Tommy Lingard’s clothes would certainly need pressing
to-morrow!
CHAPTER XXII
THINGS COME OUT ALL RIGHT
It was Saturday afternoon. Toby lay in bed in Number 22, very glad to
be home again after two days of the unfamiliar and monotonous white
walls of the infirmary. They had brought him home――for the little,
poorly furnished room was home, after all――that forenoon, and he had
partaken of a perfectly sumptuous dinner, the first in several days,
and had gone peacefully to sleep after it. But he was wide awake now
and feeling very comfortable and contented and beautifully rested. He
had been, they had told him, a pretty sick boy for a day or so after
Mr. Pennimore’s gardener and another man had rescued him and Tommy
Lingard from a sinking boat at the mouth of the river. (For it seemed,
although Toby didn’t pretend to understand it, that he had lost all
sense of direction and had rowed toward the Sound. Either that or his
tired arms had not been able to prevail over the current.) But he was
quite all right now. Of course, his head hurt a bit and his cold wasn’t
quite all gone, and he was still a little stiff in places, but aside
from those failings he felt fine!
The window was open a trifle and through it came sounds that brought a
puzzled frown to Toby’s forehead. They seemed to suggest something not
so pleasant as being at home again in his own bed. Then he remembered
and the frown disappeared. They were playing Broadwood down there on
the rink and if all this had not happened he would have been there
too, guarding his goal in the big game of the year. But, somehow, he
didn’t care so awfully much. Frank would play in his place, and Frank
deserved it. He owed Frank at least that much reparation for the unjust
suspicions he had of him. On the whole, he was glad that Frank had got
the position back again, and he only hoped that he would play such a
dandy game there that the hated Broadwood would go home scoreless!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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