He pulled the boat against a part of
the bank from which it was quite impossible for us to get into it, and
immediately went to sleep. It took us an immense amount of screaming and
roaring to wake him up again and put some sense into him; but we
succeeded at last, and got safely on board.
Harris had a sad expression on him, so we noticed, when we got into the
boat. He gave you the idea of a man who had been through trouble. We
asked him if anything had happened, and he said-
"Swans!"
It seemed we had moored close to a swan's nest, and, soon after George
and I had gone, the female swan came back, and kicked up a row about it.
Harris had chivied her off, and she had gone away, and fetched up her old
man. Harris said he had had quite a fight with these two swans; but
courage and skill had prevailed in the end, and he had defeated them.
Half-an-hour afterwards they returned with eighteen other swans! It must
have been a fearful battle, so far as we could understand Harris's
account of it. The swans had tried to drag him and Montmorency out of
the boat and drown them; and he had defended himself like a hero for four
hours, and had killed the lot, and they had all paddled away to die.
