Chapter IX: Peter in the Breakers

Since arriving in the metropolis the family had witnessed many scenes and sights that had filled them with wonder and surprise, but when they stepped from the jangling tram-car to the great sand beach by the sea and beheld the mixed mass of humorously-clad humanity plunging and flopping in the roaring, rolling breakers, the limit was reached.

“Dear, oh dear! oh dear!” Mrs. Dashwood gasped, “just look at the women!”

Polly and Tilly giggled. Old John and James and Peter stared hard, then burst into laughter.

So that visitors might study and enjoy the awful sights that rolled and stalked about the sand an enterprising management had furnished the beach with chairs at a penny a time. Old John took ten pennorth of chairs, and secured positions of advantage in the front row. Then the eyes of the family began to roam over the scene before them.

And such a scene! Such a display of bare arms, bare necks, bare legs! Such a hideous exhibition of ill-shaped humanity! Such clumsy, clothes-bag corporations! Such crooked trunks and winding limbs! Such a galaxy of fat, flabby women of forty! Such a multitude of thin, skinny women of fifteen and fifty! And such odd women, with no chests, and legs rolling with fat to the ankles! Verily it was a great sight, worthy of a great city. It seemed as though nature were out for the day, as though she were holding a grand parade, a parade of all her best jokes, her most humorous works of art!

And as the mellow, moaning breakers rolled in on the heels of each other, flinging and flashing flakes of froth and foam before them, the bathers were tossed sportively about on the crests like so many scraps of cork.

Now and again a large female would be lifted off her legs and thrown into the arms of some frail, bald-headed old fool, who, in his excitement, had forgotten to remove his spectacles when undressing, and together they would turn turtle to the great delight of the spectators.

A broad-backed man, with a heavy stomach and bow legs, arrayed in a suggestion of blue short pants and a handkerchief, crawled out of the water and stood with his back obscuring the view of our friends. There was sand in his hair and his ears. The salt water trickling down his hairy back dripped off him on to the sand. The Dashwoods looked at each other, then blushed and laughed. This man was the mayor of the great city, but he might just as well have been one of the council cart-horses for all the notice that was taken of him.

Mrs. Dashwood voiced a desire to return to the city; but old John opposed the proposition. Old John was beginning to see the fun of surf-bathing. So was Peter.

“By Jove, I don’t know,” Peter said enthusiastically, “I wouldn’t mind having a dip in it. Will you come in, father?”

“Go on with you, boy!” Mrs. Dashwood interposed, “your father would never be so stupid.”

“Well, now, Ah bain’t be sure,” old John put in, with a short laugh. “Everyone be agoin’ in, an’ Ah thenks it’s good for yow.”

Tilly took alarm.

“Oh, father’s going in, too!” she said to Polly, with a look of horror.

“He’s _not_!” sceptically from Polly. Polly was sure her parent would never do anything that would lower the family pride.

“Well, only for the baby,” Maria said bluntly, “I’d go in myself. I don’t see where the harm comes in so long as you have got something on.”

At this Polly and Tilly tittered, and Mrs. Dashwood said: “_Maria!_”

But Maria was prepared to argue the matter.

“Now, what’s wrong about it?” she insisted, turning to her mother.

“There bain’t be nothin’,” old John put in, “an’ Ah’ll go wi’ yow, lad,” he added, addressing Peter.

Peter jumped at the suggestion.

“Come on, then, father,” he said, and off they went to join the throng of fresh arrivals that were crowding into the paling yards which served for dressing-rooms.

They were absent for quite a while.

At intervals Mrs. Dashwood and the girls would glance nervously around to see if old John really meant to join the surf-bathers.

Eventually old John and Peter appeared, garbed like a pair of circus clowns. Stepping tenderly over the pebbles in their bare feet they advanced to the water’s edge. Old John, with his ponderous corporation covered with red, his long, hairy arms dangling about, and his long feet poking out before him, formed an interesting addition to the many humorous surf sights. Peter, in blue pants that were mostly trunk, might, at a distance, have passed for a girl.

At sight of them Mrs. Dashwood felt the family virtue had gone for ever.

“I never thought they could be such fools!” she moaned plaintively.

“I don’t think they’re fools!” Maria growled stubbornly. “Do you, James?” she asked of her staid brother.

But James didn’t know what to think. He could only stare and chuckle.

“Good gracious me!” Tilly murmured, as she felt cause for fresh alarm, “I do hope they won’t come over here, near us.”

“Well, _I_ won’t stay if they do,” and Polly glanced along the crowded beach.

Old John and Peter took boldly to the water. They paddled through the shallow parts, one behind the other, like King Sandy and his gin out ration-hunting. The tail-end of a wave flew up at their heads. It was a cold tail-end. They gasped, and laughed and pranced about. They waded further, until the water rose above their knees, then anchored awhile. And while Peter scooped up fistsful of brine to wet his head as a protection again sunstroke, old John gave his whiskers a drenching, and adjusted his red garment, which showed an inclination to part company with him. Both looked back at their friends on shore and waved.

“Don’t notice them!” Mrs. Dashwood advised.

“Pretend you don’t see them!” Tilly added.

But Maria’s heart was with the surf-bathers. She took out her handkerchief and waved back, and waved again, until the front seats resembled a flag station. Then, elevating her infant in her arms, she called upon it to gaze afar out upon “grandfather.” People sitting near her smiled and turned their eyes upon the attractive form of old John.

Old John and Peter ventured some more. The water was now up to their waist. A great wave came breaking in, bearing back to shore scores of bathers on its bosom. Quite a column of them were shooting straight for old John. John saw the breaker coming. He put out his chest and stood to it bravely. The breaker struck him, and the head of a flying female struck him too. It bunted him in the stomach and knocked him back. Like a sunken ship old John went down in three feet of water. At the same time, though, his hands went out like grappling-irons. They gripped the offending female and dragged her under also. Then for a moment two pairs of unevenly balanced legs were seen walloping the surface water into foam and fury, just as though two monsters of the deep were there engaged in deadly combat. The half-smothered female came to the surface first, and, with a gurgle and a splutter and an hysterical squeal, floundered off in pursuit of her friends. Then up rose old John like a whale, and, discharging quite a cargo of salt water, dragged at his whiskers and joyfully roared his appreciation of the rough-and-tumble. The spectators joined with him in his merriment. The more they saw of old John the more they enjoyed him, and so as no mistakes would be made when they were pointing him out to each other they designated him “whiskers” and “old red-skin.” Some others who had overheard Maria familiarly referred to him as “grandfather.”

At intervals Polly and Tilly would glance round to see what like those people were who would make _their_ parent a butt for jokes. In fact, they became very uneasy, and as a way out of the predicament Tilly suggested they all take a walk along the beach. But receiving no encouragement from the others she contented herself through the few remaining miserable moments by prodding the sand at her feet with the point of her parasol.

Encouraged by the example of experienced bathers around him, Peter set his mind upon swimming out to meet the breakers. He swam out. In fresh water creeks Peter was a fair swimmer; amongst the breakers, of course, he was a fool. Peter swam out further than the boldest of them. Then he attracted notice. A chorus of voices called warningly to him. He rounded and turned his head for shore again. Then suddenly something went wrong. He struggled, and splashed, but made no headway. He lost ground. The angry sea was carrying him out, bearing him off another victim! Peter yelled. A hundred others yelled. All hit out hurriedly for shore till all that could be seen in the surf was Peter’s black head bobbing about afar out. The alarm went up and down the beach. Everyone rushed to the same spot, and the crowd thickened and thickened. The spectators stood upon the chairs.

“It’s _Peter_!” Tilly shrieked.

“Oh, my God!” and Mrs. Dashwood fainted into the arms of James. Then lusty cries of “_Marcee! Marcee!_” rang out, and were echoed all around. The stalwart, sinewy, scarred form of the hero of a hundred rescues, life-line in hand, eyes open wide, nostrils distended, raced from the dressing-room and took to the water. The crowd watched silently, breathlessly. Out forged Marcee, arm over arm. Nearer and nearer he drew to Peter. Still not a murmur from the multitude on the beach. The dropping of a pin on the sand would have made a big dint in the silence. Then, like a clap of thunder the break came. “_He’s got him!_” burst on the air like the belching of twenty thousand guns. For just a moment Marcee and Peter seemed to grapple with each other. Then the iron-like fist of Marcee was uplifted and Peter received the punch of his life on the head.

“It was to stun him so as he wouldn’t hold me!” Marcee explained afterwards.

* * * * *

When Peter came to again he was lying in a hotel by the beach, and a doctor in bathing costume, and the whole family and a number of sympathetic old women, were watching over him.

“Why—what th’ deuce are you all doing, eh? Is it dinner-time? What?” and Peter stared strangely about.

Then Mrs. Dashwood fell on his neck and shed tears all over him and called him her “darling boy.”

Old John, who had been bellowing like a pen of bull calves, threw his arms round the doctor.

“He’ll be all right now,” the latter said, with a smile, and went off to the beach again.