Ned, the son of Webb: What he did.

"Green Lake Lane," thought Ned. "I won't go there to-day."

On that point he should have first consulted the sorrel colt under him. The instant she came to the head of the lane she uttered a sharp exclamation and whirled gaily into it. Ned at once drew upon his bridle in an attempt to guide her back into the highway. Up went her heels a little viciously, and her easy gallop changed into something like a run. If she had now only a quarter-mile to go, she was determined to make short work of whatever errand was in her mind.

"She's going like lightning!" exclaimed Ned, clinging his best and pulling hard.

"This lane runs right on into the lake. Oh, my!"

Faster, faster, went the beautiful thoroughbred racer. The trees at the roadside seemed to go flashing by, and now the lake itself was in full view ahead.

It was a broad, placid, forest-bordered sheet of water, apparently somewhat irregular in shape. There were neither wharves nor piers nor boathouses to be seen.

The entire lake landscape was wildly picturesque, – if Ned could at that moment have considered at all any of the beauties of nature. He could not have done so, for it seemed to him that Nanny was not even giving him time to think. Long afterward, he remembered asking himself if it were possible that Nanny had any idea of going for a swim.

She had no such intentions, indeed. She had other plans and purposes, and she carried out her own conception of a grand morning romp with Ned to perfection.

The moderate slope to the water's edge was green with grass, and the little waves came rippling in smilingly. The water there was not very shallow, however.

On – on – sprang swiftly the sorrel colt, and it was plain that only the lake itself could stop her.

That is, the bridle and bit were of no account, but she could stop herself. Her round yellow fore hoofs came down side by side at the margin, and the water was only a few inches above her silken fetlocks when she suddenly, sharply braced herself as still as if she had been instantaneously cast in bronze for exhibition.

Ned did not sit still at all. He was cast clean over the gracefully bowing head of the playful Nanny, right into Green Lake, as far as she could throw him.

Beyond all doubt, she had accomplished her purposes remarkably well.

There was no actual harm done to her rider, either, for the water in which Ned landed, if a boy can correctly be said to land in water, was fully four feet deep. He went into it head first, heels up, hat flying, with a kind of astonished yell in his throat that was drowned before it could get away from him.

When he came to the surface again and struck out for the shore, recapturing his floating hat on the way, there stood Nanny entirely calm and as gentle as ever.

Now again he could almost have believed that she was winking at him. She neighed very kindly, drank some lake water, and then she lifted her head and gazed around the lake as if she enjoyed the scenery.

"I can mount her again," asserted Ned, as he stood still to drip. "Oh, but ain't I glad I lighted on something soft! It wasn't a fair throw, anyhow. I hadn't anything left to hold on with."

Whatever he meant by that, she had slung him over her head, and there was very little doubt but what she could do it again. She had a will of her own, too, as to being ridden, and she as much as said so when he went to get hold of her bridle, intending to lead her to a neighbouring log and remount. He did not succeed in putting a hand on the leather. Up went her heels, around she whirled, and away she went, neighing cheerfully as she galloped along the lane.

"Now, this is too bad!" groaned Ned. "I'm as wet as a drowned rat and I've got to foot it home. Nanny'll get there before I do, too, unless she runs away somewhere else, and they'll all wonder what's become of me."

He felt humiliated, discouraged, and not at all like the kind of fellow to command ironclads and lead armies.

There was nothing else to be done, nevertheless, and he began to trudge dolefully along on his homeward way. Walking in wet clothing is not very comfortable exercise, anyhow, and Ned was not now, by any means, the nobby-looking young man from the city that he had been when he rode away that morning. Even more than before, when he was so well mounted, did curious people turn in their carriages and wagons to stare at him. It was on his mind that every one of them had a good laugh and remarked:

"That chap's had a ducking!"

He plodded along, and succeeded in getting half-way before anything serious occurred. Then, indeed, he suddenly stood stock-still, and wished he had been farther.

"There they come!" he exclaimed. "There are grandfather and grandmother and Pat and old Mrs. Emmons and Uncle Jack. More people behind 'em. Oh, dear! They've seen me already, or I'd climb a fence."

It was altogether too late for any attempt at escape. In a few moments more they were in front of him, and all around him, saying all sorts of things so rapidly that he had to keep shut up till they gave him a chance.

"Oh, my blessed boy!" exclaimed Grandmother Webb. "If you wasn't so wet, I'd hug you! We thought the colt had thrown you; we were afraid you were killed!"

"No!" said Ned, with energy. "But she fired me over her head into the lake, and I swam ashore."

"I caught her," put in Pat McCarty. "Here she is, – the beauty! That was for thryin' to hould her in. You must niver do that ag'in."

"I didn't pull much," said Ned.

Uncle Jack had been looking him all over, critically, from head to foot.

"That lake is very wet," he remarked. "Ned, my boy, I'm glad the critter projected you into soft water. You've come out of it a fine-looking bird."

"I don't care," said Ned. "This blue flannel doesn't shrink with wetting. My hat'll be all right as soon as it's dry; so'll my shoes."

At that moment he heard a shrill, soft neigh close to his ear, and Nanny poked her head over his shoulder to gaze affectionately at the family gathering, as if she felt that she was entitled to some of the credit of the occasion.

"It's the fun of her," said Pat. "It's just the joke she played on the b'ye. She knows more'n half the min."

"Edward," commanded his grandfather, "come right back to the house."

"He can't ketch cold sech a day as this," said old Mrs. Emmons, "or I'd make him some pepper tea; but his mother mustn't hear of it. How it would skeer her!"

"No, it wouldn't," said Ned. "She knows I can swim. Father won't care, either, so long's I got ashore."

The procession set out for the house, Pat and Nanny marching ahead. It grew, too, as it went, for ever so many of the village boys came hurrying to join it, and to inquire how it was that Nanny made out to throw Ned into Green Lake. Then they all went forward to walk along with her, full of admiration for a colt that knew how to give a boy a ducking.

"She slung him," said one.

"Hove him clean over her head."

"She was goin' a mile a minute."

"If I'd ha' been Ned, I'd ha' braced back and stuck on."

"Then she'd ha' rolled over."

Not one of them offered to ride her, however; and the procession reached the house. When it did so, Nanny broke away from Pat, and cantered on to the barn-yard. The gate from that into the paddock was shut, and she went over it with a splendid leap, to begin a kind of dance around the Devon calves.

"It's mighty little good to fence in the like of her," remarked Pat. "I'm thinkin' I'd better give the b'ye wan o' thim other cowlts."

CHAPTER III.

A VERY WIDE LAKE

"This is the coolest place there is in the house," remarked Ned, as he looked around the library that hot June afternoon. "Grandmother and the rest of them have gone out to the Sewing Society. What a fuss they made! As if a bit of a swim could hurt me!"

The shelves and cases were crowded with books, and at first he did nothing but lie in a big wickerwork chair, and stare at them.

"No," he said, aloud, "I won't do any reading, not in such a sweltering day as this is. I can get out that Norway book, though, and look at the pictures."