and cold and
stiff, closed my eyes again that I might forget it.

'In the meantime my mother waited about half an hour, expecting my
return when the _sulks_ had evaporated. I not returning, she sent into
the churchyard and round the town. Not found! Several men and all the
boys were sent out to ramble about and seek me. In vain. My mother was
almost distracted, and at ten o'clock at night I was cried by the crier
in Ottery and in two villages near it, with a reward offered for me. No
one went to bed; indeed, I believe half the town were up all the night.
To return to myself. About five in the morning, or a little after, I was
broad awake, and attempted to get up and walk, but I could not move. I
saw the shepherds and workmen at a distance and cried, but so faintly
that it was impossible to hear me thirty yards off. And there I might
have lain and died, for I was now almost given over, the ponds, and even
the river (near which I was lying), having been dragged. But
providentially Sir Stafford Northcote, who had been out all night,
resolved to make one other trial, and came so near that he heard me
crying. He carried me in his arms for nearly a quarter of a mile, when
we met my father and Sir Stafford's servants. I remember, and never
shall forget, my father's face as he looked upon me while I lay in the
servant's arms--so calm, and the tears stealing down his face, for I was
the child of his old age. My mother, as you may suppose, was outrageous
with joy. Meantime in rushed a young lady, crying out, "_I hope you'll
whip him, Mrs. Coleridge_." This woman still lives at Ottery, and
neither philosophy nor religion has been able to conquer the antipathy
which I feel towards her whenever I see her.' So says Samuel. We
ourselves have not yet seen this young lady, and now in 1849,
considering that it is about eighty years from the date of her
wickedness, it seems unlikely that we shall. But _our_ antipathy we
declare to be also, alas! quite unconquerable by the latest supplements
to the Transcendental philosophy that we have yet received from
Deutschland. Whip the Ancient Mariner, indeed! A likely thing _that_:
and at the very moment when he was coming off such a hard night's duty,
and supporting a character which a classical Roman has pronounced to be
a spectacle for Olympus--viz., that of '_Puer bonus cum mala-fortuna
compositus_' (a virtuous boy matched in duel with adversity)! The sequel
of the adventure is thus reported: