There
was Wallingford lock, clearly marked, a mile and a half below Benson's.
It was a good, reliable map; and, besides, I recollected the lock myself.
I had been through it twice. Where were we? What had happened to us? I
began to think it must be all a dream, and that I was really asleep in
bed, and should wake up in a minute, and be told it was past ten.
I asked my cousin if she thought it could be a dream, and she replied
that she was just about to ask me the same question; and then we both
wondered if we were both asleep, and if so, who was the real one that was
dreaming, and who was the one that was only a dream; it got quite
interesting.
I still went on pulling, however, and still no lock came in sight, and
the river grew more and more gloomy and mysterious under the gathering
shadows of night, and things seemed to be getting weird and uncanny. I
thought of hobgoblins and banshees, and will-o'-the-wisps, and those
wicked girls who sit up all night on rocks, and lure people into whirl-
pools and things; and I wished I had been a better man, and knew more
hymns; and in the middle of these reflections I heard the blessed strains
of "He's got `em on," played, badly, on a concertina, and knew that we
were saved.
