Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/37

Rh also heard her calling and had noted the bleating of the lamb. Running down the bank, he had flung off his coat and leaped into the water. With a few strokes he had reached the drowning beast. To get back was not an easy matter, and twice the watchers thought the swimmer must fail, hampered as he was by the struggling beast and with the strong tide against him. But he had fought his way bravely, carrying the lamb, as a cat would her kitten, in his mouth. When he at length reached the side the watchers ran to meet him and helped him ashore. The woman said little, but thanked him with shining and excited eyes. The herd was shamed by her gratitude. He was a coward the minute he was out of danger—afraid of thanks. He shuffled off, saying something about a flood in the river if the heavy rains continued. When he had gone the woman turned to her husband: ‘Oh, if you had done that!’ ‘But dear,’ he answered, ‘is an animal worth the risk of a human life?’ ‘Oh, it was not the lamb,’ she replied, with glowing eyes—then added thoughtfully, ‘He was a man.’

"‘I am not as fine a swimmer as he,’ the