The whole episode had taken but a few minutes. Kent had heard the call and some note of need in it registered, after a moment, in his mind. He ran back and leaped into the water.
He clambered into the flat boat and reaching over pulled Margery bodily over the gunwale. The child, sick and hysterical, huddled into the bottom of the boat.
"Sure," replied Lydia, who was beginning to recover her breath.
It was the work of a minute to ground the boat. Then unheeding little Patience's lamentations, the two children looked at each other and at Margery.
"And scare her to death! She isn't hurt a bit," insisted Lydia. "Margery, stop crying. You're all right, I tell you."
"I'll tell you," said Kent, "let's put her in Patience's carriage, and carry her home. The water she swallowed makes her awful sick at her stomach, I guess."
The fright over, the old spirit of adventure, with an added sense of heroism, animated Kent and Lydia.
Margery was teased out of the boat and assisted into the perambulator, with her dripping white legs dangling helplessly over the end. Little Patience's tears were assuaged when she was placed in the doll buggy, with Margery's doll in her arms. Florence Dombey was tied papoose fashion to Lydia's back. The bicycle was hidden in the cave and with Kent wheeling Margery and Lydia, Patience, the procession started wildly for home.
By the time they had turned into the home street, Margery was beginning to recover, but she was still shivering and inclined to sob. Other children followed them and it was quite an imposing group that turned in at the Marshall gate, just as Mrs. Marshall came to the door to bid a guest good-by.
The scene that followed was difficult for either Lydia or Kent to describe afterward. There was a hullabaloo that brought half the mothers of the neighborhood into the yard. The doctor was sent for. Margery was put to bed and Kent and Lydia were mentioned as murderers, low-down brats and coarse little brutes by Mrs. Marshall, who ended by threatening them with the police.
Old Lizzie appeared on the scene in time to take Lydia's part and Kent disappeared after Mrs. Marshall had told him that Margery's father would be around to see his father that evening.