Still she pressed bravely on. She gripped her hands and kept repeating, “Every step takes me nearer, every step takes me nearer,” till it made itself into a kind of tune. She dared not think that the worst was yet to come, and that the Tyger River with its brawling current had still to be crossed. When at last she heard a faint murmuring, it seemed to give her new strength, and she turned in that direction.
Just as the first gleams of dawn lighted the sky, she stood on the muddy banks of the river. She looked about her in the dim light and thought that she recognised the place as the ford where they usually crossed. So, quite exhausted, she threw herself upon the ground, saying to herself, “I will rest a few moments and take a bite of pone, for well I know that the water of the Tyger is deadly cold and muddy too.”
As she thought, she acted, and in a brief time rose to her feet, not with that springy lightness which was customary with her, but slowly and with effort. The long hard walk, the chafing of the boots which were too large for her, all made her feel stiff and lame, and as she waded into the water, it took all her courage to keep from screaming out.
In she went, a step at a time, thrusting one foot before the other to feel her way in the rushing water, and bewildered by the grey light and the heavy fog which lay above the water and hid the other shore. It seemed to her that the water was getting very deep, surely much deeper than when she went through it before, though on that occasion she was mounted safely on the back of her little pony.
“Oh, dear Molly, if only you were here with me now instead of safe at home in your stall”; and one or two tears rolled over Dicey’s cheeks to be immediately swallowed up in the swirling waters which every moment grew deeper around her.
She went forward, step by step, never once thinking of turning back; and now the wavelets reached her waist, and now they were breast high and so heavy that they threatened to draw her from her feet. Completely bewildered, not quite sure of her course since the opposite bank could not be seen through the low-lying fog, Dicey lost her track and wandered up stream instead of across. She noticed that the water, now just below her armpits, kept at the same height, and fearing that every moment it would grow deep enough to engulf her, she stopped a moment in her difficult course and looked about her.
What was that which she could dimly discern apparently advancing towards her? To her mind, already overwrought, it seemed “Bloody Bates” himself, as indeed it might have been, and with a shriek which she vainly tried to smother, she turned abruptly to the left and plunged with all the speed she could muster through the water.
Oh, joyful thought! The black stream was getting lower, it was but breast high now, and as she leaped and plunged along, with every movement it receded, till at last she stumbled on the bank, and lay there sobbing with fright and exhaustion. She heard a soft swish in the river, and hastily raised her head to find that what had so terrified her was a huge buck, which was now half swimming and half wading to shore himself.
Cold and wet, half dead with fright and fatigue, Dicey, at sight of her supposed enemy, laid her head on her arms and had a good cry.
“Only a deer,” she sobbed, and then began to laugh, and with the laugh, feeling better, she scrambled to her feet, saying to herself, “’Tis but two miles to brother Tom’s and then I am safe.”