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ool at once. As they went down, Alec had made a plunge to lay hold of Annie, but had missed her. The moment he got his breath, he swam again into the boiling pool, dived, and got hold of her; but he was so stupefied by the force of the water falling upon him and beating him down, that he could not get out of the raging depth--for here the water was many feet deep--and as he would not leave his hold of Annie, was in danger of being drowned. Meantime Curly had scrambled on shore and climbed up to the mill-race, where he shut down the sluice hard. In a moment the tumult had ceased, and Alec and Annie were in still water. In a moment more he had her on the bank, apparently lifeless, whence he carried her home to his mother in terror. She immediately resorted to one or two of the usual restoratives, and was presently successful. As soon as she had opened her eyes, Alec and Curly hurried off to get out their boat. They met the miller in an awful rage; for the sudden onset of twice the quantity of water on his overshot wheel, had set his machinery off as if it had been bewitched, and one old stone, which had lost its iron girdle, had flown in pieces, to the frightful danger of the miller and his men. "Ye ill-designed villains!" cried he at a venture, "what gart ye close the sluice? I s' learn ye to min' what ye're aboot. Deil tak' ye for rascals!" And he seized one in each brawny hand. "Annie Anderson was droonin' aneath the waste-water," answered Curly promptly. "The Lord preserve 's!" said the miller, relaxing his hold "Hoo was that? Did she fa' in?" The boys told him the whole story. In a few minutes more the back-fall was again turned off, and the miller was helping them to get their boat out. The _Bonnie Annie_ was found uninjured. Only the oars and stretchers had floated down the stream, and were never heard of again. Alec had a terrible scolding from his mother for getting Annie into such mischief. Indeed Mrs Forbes did not like the girl's being so much with her son; but she comforted herself with the probability that by and by Alec would go to college, and forget her. Meantime, she was very kind to Annie, and took her home herself, in order to excuse her absence, the blame of which she laid entirely on Alec, not knowing that thereby she greatly aggravated any offence of which Annie might have been guilty. Mrs Bruce solemnly declared her conviction that a judgment had fallen upon her for Willie Macwha's
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