th
the zammon again.--I zay, ye aren't dead now. Don't ye be a vool. It
aren't worth dying for, lad. Coom, coom, coom, open your eyes and zit
up like a man. You're a gentleman, and ought to know better. I aren't
no scholard, and I didn't do zo.--Oh, look at him! I shall be hanged
for it, and put on the gibbet, and all for a bit o' vish.--Zay, look
here, if you don't come to I'll pitch you back again, and they'll think
you tumbled in, and never know no better. It's voolish of ye, lad.
Don't give up till ye're ninety-nine or a hundred. It's time enough to
die then. Don't die now, with the sun shining and the fish running up
the valls, and ye might be so happy and well."

And all the while Pete kept on thumping and rubbing and banging his
patient about in the most vigorous way.

"It's spite, that's what it is," growled the man. "You hit me i' th'
mouth and tried to drownd me, and because you couldn't you're trying to
get me hanged; and you shan't, for if you don't come-to soon, sure as
you're alive I'll pitch you back to be carried out to zea.--Nay, nay, I
wouldn't, lad. Ye'd coom back and harnt me. I never meant to do more
than duck you, and Hooray!"

For Nic's nature had at last risen against the treatment he was
receiving. It was more than any one could stand; so, in the midst of a
furious bout of rubbing, the poor fellow suddenly yawned and opened his
eyes, to stare blankly up at the bright sun-rays streaming down through
the overhanging boughs of the gnarled oaks. He dropped his lids again,
but another vigorous rubbing made him open them once more; and as he
stared now at his rough doctor his lips moved to utter the word "Don't!"
but it was not heard, and after one or two more appeals he caught the
man's wrists and tried to struggle up into a sitting position, Pete
helping him, and then, as he knelt there, grinning in his face.

Nic sat staring at him and beginning to think more clearly, so that in a
few minutes he had fully grasped the position and recalled all that had
taken place.

It was evident that there was to be a truce between them, for Pete
Burge's rough countenance was quite smiling and triumphant, while on
Nic's own part the back of his neck ached severely, and he felt as if he
could not have injured a fly.

At last Nic rose, shook himself after the fashion of a dog to get rid of
some of the water which soaked his clothes, and looked round about him
for his cap, feeling that he would b