"Not at the time, but you dear old thing, you have really saved a
life! That was always our dream!"
"The boy is not at all like our dream!" said Sydney. "He is a horrid
little fellow."
"Oh, he will come right now!"
"If you knew the family, you would very much doubt it."
"Sydney, why will you go on disenchanting me? I thought _the real
thing_ had happened to you at last as a reward for having been truer
to our old woman than I."
"I don't think you would have thought hanging on that bank much
reward," said Sydney.
"Adventures aren't nice when they are going on. It is only
'meminisse juvat', you know. You must have felt like the man in
Ruckert's Apologue, with the dragon below, and the mice gnawing the
root above."
"My dear, that story kept running in my head, and whenever I looked
at the river it seemed to be carrying me away, bank, and stump, and
all. I'm afraid it will do so all night. It did, when some hot wine
and water they made me have with my dinner sent me to sleep. Then I
thought of—-
"Time, with its ever rolling stream,
Is bearing them away,"
and I didn't know which was Time and which was Avon."
"In your sleep, or by the river?"
"Both, I think! I seem to have thought of thousands of things, and
yet my whole soul was one scream of despairing prayer, though I don't
believe I said anything except to bid the boy hold still, till I
heard that welcome shout.
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