Stir not an inch;
speak not a word: happiness is a coy maiden--hold her hand and be still.
In an evil moment I spied the corner of a newspaper projecting from the
pocket of my coat in the stern-sheets. Folly led me to open that
newspaper, and in it I saw and read a ghastly paragraph. Two ladies and a
gentleman while boating had been carried by the current against the piles
of a weir. The boat upset; the ladies were rescued, but the unfortunate
gentleman was borne over the fall and drowned. His body had not been
recovered; men were watching the pool day and night till some chance eddy
should bring it to the surface. So perished my dream, and the coy-maiden
happiness left me because I could not be content to be silent and still.
The accident had not happened at this weir, but it made no difference; I
could see all as plainly. A white face, blurred and indistinct, seemed to
rise up from beneath the rushing bubbles till, just as it was about to
jump to the surface, as things do that come up, down it was drawn again
by that terrible underpull which has been fatal to so many good swimmers.
Who can keep afloat with a force underneath dragging at the feet? Who can
swim when the water--all bubbles, that is air--gives no resistance to the
hands? Hands and feet slip through the bubbles.
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