d stirrup. And I compassed that too, with the aid of my stick;
although, to tell you the truth, I was not at that time of life so agile
as boys of smaller frame are, for my size was growing beyond my years,
and the muscles not keeping time with it, and the joints of my bones not
closely hinged, with staring at one another. But the third step-hole was
the hardest of all, and the rock swelled out on me over my breast, and
there seemed to be no attempting it, until I espied a good stout rope
hanging in a groove of shadow, and just managed to reach the end of it.

How I clomb up, and across the clearing, and found my way home through
the Bagworthy forest, is more than I can remember now, for I took all
the rest of it then as a dream, by reason of perfect weariness. And
indeed it was quite beyond my hopes to tell so much as I have told, for
at first beginning to set it down, it was all like a mist before me.
Nevertheless, some parts grew clearer, as one by one I remembered them,
having taken a little soft cordial, because the memory frightens me.

For the toil of the water, and danger of labouring up the long cascade
or rapids, and then the surprise of the fair young maid, and terror of
the murderers, and desperation of getting away--all these are much to
me even now, when I am a stout churchwarden, and sit by the side of my
fire, after going through many far worse adventures, which I will tell,
God willing. Only the labour of writing is such (especially so as to
construe, and challenge a reader on parts of speech, and hope to be even
with him); that by this pipe which I hold in my hand I ever expect to be
beaten, as in the days when old Doctor Twiggs, if I made a bad stroke
in my exercise, shouted aloud with a sour joy, "John Ridd, sirrah, down
with your small-clothes!"

Let that be as it may, I deserved a good beating that night, after
making such a fool of myself, and grinding good fustian to pieces. But
when I got home, all the supper was in, and the men sitting at the white
table, and mother and Annie and Lizzie near by, all eager, and offering
to begin (except, indeed, my mother, who was looking out at the
doorway), and by the fire was Betty Muxworthy, scolding, and cooking,
and tasting her work, all in a breath, as a man would say. I looked
through the door from the dark by the wood-stack, and was half of a mind
to stay out like a dog, for fear of the rating and reckoning; but the
way my dear mother was looking about