After he had unmoored his little
embarkation, and seen me safely shoved off into midstream, he ran
away back to his hats with the air of a man who had only just
recollected that he had anything to do.
I did not stay very long on the raft. It ought to have been very
nice punting about there in the cool shade of the trees, or sitting
moored to an over-hanging root; but perhaps the very notion that I
was bound in gratitude specially to enjoy my little cruise, and
cherish its recollection, turned the whole thing from a pleasure into
a duty. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that I soon wearied and
came ashore again, and that it gives me more pleasure to recall the
man himself and his simple, happy conversation, so full of gusto and
sympathy, than anything possibly connected with his crank, insecure
embarkation. In order to avoid seeing him, for I was not a little
ashamed of myself for having failed to enjoy his treat sufficiently,
I determined to continue up the river, and, at all prices, to find
some other way back into the town in time for dinner. As I went, I
was thinking of Smethurst with admiration; a look into that man's
mind was like a retrospect over the smiling champaign of his past
life, and very different from the Sinai-gorges up which one looks for
a terrified moment into the dark souls of many good, many wise, and
many prudent men.
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