I never shall
forget what I felt when I saw him carried along. He struggled with
his white paws, and moaned to us, but we could do nothing, and we
thought to have seen him dashed to pieces before our eyes, when,
somehow, his own struggles I fancy--he is so sagacious--brought him
up in a lot of weeds and stuff against the post of the flood-gates,
and that checked him. But we saw it could not last, and his strength
was exhausted. Poor Birdie rushed down to beg them to stop the mill,
but that could never have been done in time, and the dear dog was on
the point of being sucked in by the ruthless stream, moaning and
looking appealingly to us for help, when, behold! that superb figure,
like some divinity descending, was with us, and with one brief
inquiry he was in the water. We called out to him that the current
was frightfully strong--we knew a man's life ought not to be
perilled; but he just smiled, took up the great pole that lay near,
and waded in. I cannot describe the horror of seeing him breasting
that stream, expecting, as we did, to see him borne down by it into
the wheel. The miller shouted to him that it was madness, but he
kept his footing like a rock. He reached the place where the poor
dog was, and the fury of the stream was a little broken by the post,
took up poor Nep and put him over his shoulder. Nep was so good--lay
like a lamb--while Mr.
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