had, indeed, a narrow escape from drowning, or rather frombeing suffocated in the deep sludgy mud."
"How was it?" one of the others asked.
"I was poling a punt along the bank, looking for waterfowl to have ashot, you know, and I pulled myself into the river!"
"You mean, Paddy," said Mr Tydvill, "that you pulled yourself out ofthe river."
"No; I mean what I say; there is no blunder for you to grin at. I stuckthe pole so firmly into the deep mud, that I could not pull it out; butit pulled me in."
"Why didn't you let go at once?"
"I hadn't time to think of that; instinctively I grasped the pole, lostmy balance, and tumbled into the river."
The unfortunate youth was extracted from the deep slime among osiers bya labourer near hand, and he dried his clothes in a cottage--
"Quae villula tectum, Praebuit--"
without any bad results.
"But, do you remember, Master Tydvill," said O'Mackerry, "the day when Iwas so near catching you and throwing you into the deep hole--clothesand all? Ay, and you deserved a ducking?"
"But really, Mack, would you have pitched me in, when you knew that Iwas a bad swimmer, especially when dressed?"
"Assuredly I would have done so, for I was unusually hot in my temper,though very cold in my body at that moment; however, I suppose that Ishould have acted the part of the Newfoundland dog, and dragged thepuppy by his neck out of the water."
This complimentary part he addressed to the crew at large, and thendescribed the incident.
He had been sitting on the top bar of a ladder, of which the lower endrested on the bottom of a very deep part of the river under a high andsteep bank, for the purpose of aiding a swimmer in his ascent from thewater. The day was cold, and O'Mackerry remained in a crouching posturefor a few moments on the ladder, meditating the plunge, but not takingit. His playful friend stole behind and jerked him, heels over head,into the water, and immediately ran away. O'Mackerry, after recoveringfrom the shock and getting out of the river, pursued the offender nearlyhalf a mile, and happily without catching him. Tydvill ratherunhandsomely afterwards caricatured his friend as a barometrical greenfrog in a broad pellucid bottle partly filled with water, squatting on arung of a ladder, ingeniously serving as a graduated scale, to show thecondition of the atmosphere; the frog rising or descending as itssensations led it to immerse its body in water, or rise more or lessabove it. O'Mackerry was a capital swimmer, and was sometimes seen tocapsize himself from an Indian canoe, which he had purchased somewhereon the river Shannon, into its tidal waters with his clothes on, for thepurpose of habituating himself to swim under such difficulty. He hadthe satisfaction of saving the lives of two persons in danger ofdrowning, by his skill, courage, and presence of mind.
"But how did you learn to swim and dive so well?"
"When I was a little boy, I was fond of books of Voyages, and I liked,above all things, to read the description of the bathing pranks of theOtaheite savages, who were such active divers, that when a nail wasthrown overboard, they would plunge after it, and catch it before itreached the bottom. I thought that I could do what a savage did soeasily, and I soon learned to do what so many animals do without anyinstruction at all. If you want a model, take a frog, and imitate itsmotions in the water. Courage is everything."
"But, Mack, every one hasn't such long and strong legs and arms as youhave--just like a frog's."
"Thank you for the comparison--not for the first time, Master Tyd--but Ihave not a great belly like a frog's, which is useful in swimming--atleast in floating. A large pot-bellied man may lie on the water as longas he likes, if he keeps his head well back so as to have it supportedby the water--and with his heels closed and neck up."
"But surely in that position he would be like a log on the water, andmake no way," remarked some one of the listeners.
"True, but he can rest himself in that position until he chooses tostrike out again. Just fancy yourself a fish: you are specificallylighter than water, and you can lie as near the surface as you please;use your fins and you can move about to the right or left--as a boat ismoved by its oars; use your tail and you steer in any direction--as therudder turns the direction of the boat. Then fancy your fins and tailcut off--there you lie like a raft--without poles or oars--but you donot sink. If you have one fin, or part of one, you move like a boatwith one whole or broken oar. Now our bodily apparatus is not designedlike that of a fish for swimming, but it is capable of enabling us toswim sufficiently well for our necessities. Just read Old Franklin onthe art of swimming, and you will understand the theory of the matter atonce. The great difficulty in practice is the fear which people have ofbeing drowned, and this can only be overcome by accustoming ourselves tothe water."
"Now, Mack," said Tydvill, "you know I cannot swim; what ought I to havedone if you had pitched me into that awful hole?"
"You should have kept yourself from struggling and plunging, letting theback of your head lie quietly under the water, with your mouth free forbreathing--but not for screaming and water-drinking--till I had takenthe trouble of catching hold of you."
"But surely," replied Tydvill, "the weight of my clothes would have sunkme?"
"I think not," rejoined his friend; "the water would have supported themtoo, though you'd have found them very heavy when you came out of it.Will you try the experiment?"
"The theory is sufficient for me," concluded the sprightly Welshman.However, another of the crew put this question:--
"Since the body can be supported on the surface of the water, asO'Mackerry has said, and with little exertion, or without any, as inswimming on the back, how is it that a drowned body sinks, and oftenrises some days afterwards?"
"Because," said our philosopher,--who had been crammed on thesubject,--"the lungs of a drowning person become filled with water, andtherefore the body, becoming specifically heavier, sinks. The bodyremains at the bottom only until the water has been quite freed from itby _compression_; it then is swelled and expanded by gases generatedwithin, and becoming lighter than the water, rises to the top."
They had for some time been leaning on their oars, enjoying this chat,and were about to retrace their course, when one of the English ladsasked O'Mackerry if he had ever been in real danger in a boat. Theother reflected a little, and then thought of an incident which hadoccurred to him some years ago, before he had learned to swim. "Yes,"said he, "but for God's good providence I would have been," ("You mean_should_, I suppose," said Coxswain Green, in an under tone) "assuredlydrowned. I had been contriving how to put out striker lines in a deeploch near my father's house, and, not having a boat, I substituted astable door, taken from its hinges, as a raft for my purpose. I hadread of rafts on the Rhine with whole families on them--with a cabin andcow-house and pig-sty; and why should not my miniature raft support myweight? I floated the door--balanced myself nicely upon it--put out forthe middle of the loch, gently paddling it with a pole, and fearful ofthe slightest change of my position, which would have destroyed thehorizontal equilibrium of my feeble raft. When I had gone far enough--into water thirty or forty feet deep--I sent off the strikers, butunfortunately flung away my paddle along with them. My insensiblynervous movements caused the door to incline into the water at one sidean inch or two. I moved a hair's breadth; it then declined to the otherside. It would sink. I had no doubt of this. Then I gently stooped totry if I could unfasten a shoe; but this was impracticable. I tried abalancing movement again, and the door righted, but not entirely. Mypresence of mind, however, did not fail me. I took off my hat, andpaddled myself with this from side to side alternately, until I reachedthe strand--through thick masses of aquatic plants--the water-lily inparticular, whose long and interlacing stems would have embraced me todeath, if I had fallen among them. I have never known any one to swimor bathe in that dangerously deep loch. I do not see how I could haveescaped drowning at that time if I had slipped from the raft."
This led the adventurous youth to nar
rate another difficulty from whichhe had been mercifully extricated by God's providence. He had beensnipe-shooting in an Irish hog, and thoughtlessly trod upon a green,firm, and sound-looking, but very treacherous quagmire, us he waswatching a snipe which had just sprung up. He was suddenly immersed inthe semi-fluid peat to his shoulders, and only saved from quicklysubsiding into the depths of the morass by a solid bed of clay, at thedepth of five feet and a half. He sank to his under lip, barelyescaping suffocation, and having his breath spared for shouting. He waspulled up by various contrivances, a reeking column of black mire. Asit seemed clear that Mr O'Mackerry must have been engulfed in the bogif he had been half an inch under six
Foxholme Hall, and Other Tales Page 17
