and my legs were gone off in a moment, and I had not
time to cry out with wonder, only to think of my mother and Annie, and
knock my head very sadly, which made it go round so that brains were
no good, even if I had any. But all in a moment, before I knew aught,
except that I must die out of the way, with a roar of water upon me, my
fork, praise God stuck fast in the rock, and I was borne up upon it. I
felt nothing except that here was another matter to begin upon; and it
might be worth while, or again it might not, to have another fight for
it. But presently the dash of the water upon my face revived me, and my
mind grew used to the roar of it, and meseemed I had been worse off than
this, when first flung into the Lowman.

Therefore I gathered my legs back slowly, as if they were fish to be
landed, stopping whenever the water flew too strongly off my shin-bones,
and coming along without sticking out to let the wave get hold of
me. And in this manner I won a footing, leaning well forward like a
draught-horse, and balancing on my strength as it were, with the ashen
stake set behind me. Then I said to my self, "John Ridd, the sooner you
get yourself out by the way you came, the better it will be for you."
But to my great dismay and affright, I saw that no choice was left me
now, except that I must climb somehow up that hill of water, or else be
washed down into the pool and whirl around it till it drowned me. For
there was no chance of fetching back by the way I had gone down into
it, and further up was a hedge of rock on either side of the waterway,
rising a hundred yards in height, and for all I could tell five hundred,
and no place to set a foot in.

Having said the Lord's Prayer (which was all I knew), and made a very
bad job of it, I grasped the good loach-stick under a knot, and steadied
me with my left hand, and so with a sigh of despair began my course up
the fearful torrent-way. To me it seemed half a mile at least of sliding
water above me, but in truth it was little more than a furlong, as I
came to know afterwards. It would have been a hard ascent even without
the slippery slime and the force of the river over it, and I had scanty
hope indeed of ever winning the summit. Nevertheless, my terror left
me, now I was face to face with it, and had to meet the worst; and I set
myself to do my best with a vigour and sort of hardness which did not
then surprise me, but have done so ever since.

The water was only si