“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.”
“Ah, the excellent Monk! He is the family hero. I wonder if he enjoys it more than you? Did he really never let you guess how much he was hurt?”
“I asked him once; but he said it was only a dig in the side, and would go off.”
“Ah, well! Allen says it is accident that makes the hero. Now the Monk has been as good as the hyena knight of the Jotapata, who was a mixture of Tyr, with his hand in the wolf’s mouth, and of Kunimund, when he persuaded Amala that his blood running into the river was only the sunset.”
“Don’t,” said Sydney. “I won’t have it made nonsense of!”
“Indeed,” said Babie, almost piteously, “I meant it for the most glorious possible praise; but somehow people always seem to take me for a little hard bit of spar, a barbarian, or a baby; I wish I had a more sensible name!”
“Infanta, his princess, is what Duke always calls you,” said Sydney, drawing her fondly to nestle close to her on the bed in her fire-lit room. “Do you know one of the thoughts I had time for in that dreadful eternity by the river, was how I wished it were you that were going to be a daughter to poor mamma.”