Our rescuer, who proved to be a fine big young man in the bloom of youth, and a farm-laborer by trade, in corduroys, carried the wretched sufferer to the cottage where he lived with his aged mother; and then Oswald found that what he had forgotten about the leeches was salt. The young man in the bloom of youth's mother put salt on the leeches, and they squirmed off, and fell with sickening, slug-like flops on the brick floor.
Then the young man in corduroys and the bloom, etc., carried Denny home on his back, after his legs had been bandaged up, so that he looked like "wounded warriors returning."
It was not far by the road, though such a long distance by the way the young explorers had come.
He was a good young man, and though, of course, acts of goodness are their own reward, still I was glad he had the two half-crowns Albert's uncle gave him, as well as his own good act. But I am not sure Alice ought to have put him in the Golden Deed book which was supposed to be reserved for Us.
Perhaps you will think this was the end of the source of the Nile (or north pole). If you do, it only shows how mistaken the gentlest reader may be.
The wounded explorer was lying with his wounds and bandages on the sofa, and we were all having our tea, with raspberries and white currants, which we richly needed after our torrid adventures, when Mrs. Pettigrew, the housekeeper, put her head in at the door and said:
"Please could I speak to you half a moment, sir," to Albert's uncle. And her voice was the kind that makes you look at each other when the grown-up has gone out, and you are silent, with your bread-and-butter half way to the next bite, or your teacup in mid flight to your lips.
It was as we supposed. Albert's uncle did not come back for a long while. We did not keep the bread-and-butter on the wing all that time, of course, and we thought we might as well finish the raspberries and white currants. We kept some for Albert's uncle, of course, and they were the best ones too; but when he came back he did not notice our thoughtful unselfishness.
He came in, and his face wore the look that means bed, and very likely no supper.
He spoke, and it was the calmness of white-hot iron, which is something like the calmness of despair. He said: