exhausted in the public road. To tell the cowardly truth, I should
have ran on until now if I had been able. So we fell down together and
lay for a good while panting.

"Then I got up and propping myself against a poplar, took little John
on my knee. His nervous system was unstrung. He was weeping bitterly,
and sobbing as if his heart would break. His flesh was cold and
clammy, his pulse was almost still, and he hadn't strength to raise
his hands to his mouth.

"I had some root ginger in my pocket--I always carry a piece with me--
which I chewed and made him swallow. This revived him. Then I rubbed
him briskly, pinched his skin in divers tender spots, and by these
means and cheerful conversation, got him so that he could stand alone
and answer my questions. I never saw such a fool thing as he was! He
was not at all alarmed, very willingly consented to return with me--
for I'd die but what I'd see it but--thought there ought to be a perch
on his hook by this time, thought it was Sunday, thought there was
snow somewhere, 'twas so cold,--and all such notions as that.

"Every few minutes he would burst into an uncontrollable flood of
tears, but he couldn't tell for what.

"You will want to know how I felt all this time. Well, when I got a
minute's leisure from attending to him and could notice my own
feelings, I found that I was snivelling too! that my pulse was small,
my nose had been profusely bleeding, and the blood had drenched me to
the very boot tops, and I felt altogether as exhausted as one does who
has had a month's spell of the chills.