t was true. I let John do as he would with me--he who brought
into my pale life the only brightness it had ever known.

Ere long we stood on the top of the steep mound. I know not if it be a
natural hill, or one of those old Roman or British remains, plentiful
enough hereabouts, but it was always called the Mythe. Close below it,
at the foot of a precipitous slope, ran the Severn, there broad and
deep enough, gradually growing broader and deeper as it flowed on,
through a wide plain of level country, towards the line of hills that
bounded the horizon. Severn looked beautiful here; neither grand nor
striking, but certainly beautiful; a calm, gracious, generous river,
bearing strength in its tide and plenty in its bosom, rolling on
through the land slowly and surely, like a good man's life, and
fertilising wherever it flows.

"Do you like Severn still, John?"

"I love it."

I wondered if his thoughts had been anything like mine.

"What is that?" he cried, suddenly, pointing to a new sight, which even
I had not often seen on our river. It was a mass of water, three or
four feet high, which came surging along the midstream, upright as a
wall.

"It is the eger; I've often seen it on Severn, where the swift seaward
current meets the spring-tide. Look what a crest of foam it has, like
a wild boar's mane. We often call it the river-boar."

"But it is only a big wave."

"Big enough to swamp a boat, though."

And while I spoke I saw, to my horror, that there actually was a boat,
with two men in it, trying to get out of the way of the eger.

"They never can! they'll assuredly be drowned! O John!"

But he had already slipped from my side and swung himself by
furze-bushes and grass down the steep slope to the water's edge.

It was a breathless moment. The eger travelled slowly in its passage,
changing the smooth, sparkling river to a whirl of conflicting
currents, in which no boat could live--least of all that light
pleasure-boat, with its toppling sail. In it was a youth I knew by
sight, Mr. Brithwood of the Mythe House, and another gentleman.

They both pulled hard--they got out of the mid-stream, but not close
enough to land; and already there was but two oars' length between them
and the "boar."

"Swim for it!" I heard one cry to the other: but swimming would not
have saved them.

"Hold there!" shouted John at the top of his voice; "throw that rope
out and I will pull you in!"

It was a hard tug: