“And I come to try and save his, but not in time,” groaned Jerry. “Oh, my poor dear lad!” he continued, as he leaned his arm against a tree and bent his head upon it to weep aloud, “you were the master, and I’m only a servant, but I’d ha’ most give my life to ha’ saved yours, that I would. Yes!” he cried, fiercely, now in a wild, hysterical voice; “it would ha’ been better if you, too, hadn’t come in time!”
Chapter Eight.
Another Turn of the Wheel.
As if heartily ashamed of his weakness, Jerry suddenly straightened himself up, and turned angrily upon the miller.
“Don’t you never go and say you saw me making such a fool of myself!” he cried.
The man shook his head.
“Think it’s any good to go up to the town for a boat?”
“If you want to drown yourself,” was the reply. “I wouldn’t trust myself in no boat till the water goes down. I shouldn’t mind the rowing down; but you’d never know where you’d got to, and be capsized on a willow stump, or against some hedge, before you had gone a mile.”