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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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1066 ‘Be calm; you have been dreaming.’ ‘No, no, no!’ cried Smike, clinging to him. ‘Hold me tight. Don’t let me go. There, there. Behind the tree!’ Nicholas followed his eyes, which were directed to some distance behind the chair from which he himself had just risen. But, there was nothing there. ‘This is nothing but your fancy,’ he said, as he strove to compose him; ‘nothing else, indeed.’ ‘I know better. I saw as plain as I see now,’ was the answer. ‘Oh! say you’ll keep me with you. Swear you won’t leave me for an instant!’ ‘Do I ever leave you?’ returned Nicholas. ‘Lie down again-- there! You see I’m here. Now, tell me; what was it?’ ‘Do you remember,’ said Smike, in a low voice, and glancing fearfully round, ‘do you remember my telling you of the man who first took me to the school?’ ‘Yes, surely.’ ‘I raised my eyes, just now, towards that tree--that one with the thick trunk--and there, with his eyes fixed on me, he stood!’ ‘Only reflect for one moment,’ said Nicholas; ‘granting, for an instant, that it’s likely he is alive and wandering about a lonely place like this, so far removed from the public road, do you think that at this distance of time you could possibly know that man again?’ ‘Anywhere--in any dress,’ returned Smike; ‘but, just now, he stood leaning upon his stick and looking at me, exactly as I told you I remembered him. He was dusty with walking, and poorly dressed--I think his clothes were ragged--but directly I saw him, the wet night, his face when he left me, the parlour I was left in, |
