Inevitably, if the flood did not abate, within a few hours more there would be nothing left of the fine old tree.
"I don't quite like this," said John, meditatively, as his quick eye swept down the course of the river, with the houses and wharves that abutted on it, all along one bank.

"Did you ever see the waters thus high before ?" "Yes, I believe I have; nobody minds it at Norton Bury; it is only the sudden thaw, my father says, and he ought to know, for he has had plenty of experience, the tan-yard being so close to the river." "I was thinking of that; but come, it's getting cold." He took me safe home, and we parted cordially--nay, affectionately--at my own door.
"When will you come again, David ?" "When your father sends me." And I felt that HE felt that our intercourse was always to be limited to this.

Nothing clandestine, nothing obtrusive, was possible, even for friendship's sake, to John Halifax.
My father came in late that evening; he looked tired and uneasy, and instead of going to bed, though it was after nine o'clock, sat down to his pipe in the chimney-corner.
"Is the river rising still, father?
Will it do any harm to the tan-yard ?" "What dost thee know about the tan-yard!" "Only John Halifax was saying--" "John Halifax had better hold his tongue." I held mine.
My father puffed away in silence till I came to bid him good-night.

I think the sound of my crutches on the floor stirred him out of a long meditation, in which his ill-humour had ebbed away.
"Where didst thee go out to-day, Phineas ?--thee and the lad I sent." "To the Mythe:" and I told him the incident that had happened there.
He listened without reply.
"Wasn't it a brave thing to do, father ?" "Um!"-- and a few meditative puffs.

"Phineas, the lad thee hast such a hankering after is a good lad--a very decent lad--if thee doesn't make too much of him.