something in my look seemed to frighten him, for without a word he turned and fled. But all my attention was centred in the boat, which was drifting slowly into mid-stream with Lisbeth still fast asleep. And as I watched its sluggish progress, with a sudden chill I remembered the weir, which foamed and roared only a short half-mile away. If the boat once got drawn into that—! 

 Now, I am quite aware that under these circumstances the right and proper thing for me to have done, would have been to throw aside my coat, tear off my boots, etc., and "boldly breast the foamy flood." But I did neither, for the simple reason that once within the 'foamy flood' aforesaid, there would have been very little chance of my ever getting out again, for—let me confess the fact with the blush of shame—I am no swimmer. 

 Yet I was not idle, far otherwise. Having judged the distance between the drifting boat and the bank, I began running along, seeking the thing I wanted. And presently, sure enough, I found it—a great pollard oak, growing upon the edge of the water, that identical tree with the 'stickie-out' branches which has already figured in these narratives as the hiding-place of a certain pair of silk stockings. 

 Hastily swinging myself up, I got astride the lowest branch, which projected out over the water. I had distanced the boat by some hundred yards, and as I sat there I watched its drift, one minute full of hope, and the next as miserably uncertain. My obvious intention was to crawl out upon the branch until it bent with my weight, and so let myself into, or as near the boat as possible. It was close now, so close that I could see the gleam of Lisbeth's hair and the point of the little tan shoe. With my eyes on this, I writhed my way along the bough, which bent more and more as I neared the end. Here I hung, swaying up and down and to and fro in a highly unpleasant manner, while I waited the crucial moment. 

 Never upon this whole round earth did anything creep as that boat did. There was a majestic deliberation in its progress that positively maddened me. I remember to have once read an article somewhere upon the "Sensibility of Material Things," or something of the sort, which I had forgotten long since, but as I hung there suspended between heaven and earth, it came back to me with a rush, and I was perfectly certain that, recognising my precarious position, that time-worn, ancient boat checked its speed out of "pure cussedness." 

 But all things have an end, and so, little by little the blunt bow crept nearer until it was in the very shade of 

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