Diggs, the boat-house keeper, was a widower, with one child, a girl of ten years old. His mother lived with him--an aged woman, confined to her bed, of late, with rheumatic fever, from which she was slowly recovering. On the previous night Diggs was out, and the girl had been sent on an errand, Mrs. Diggs being left in the house alone. She was lying quietly, still as was the air outside, when sudden sounds broke that stillness, and smote upon her ear. Footsteps--young steps, they seemed--were heard to come tearing down on the outside gravel, from the direction of the cathedral, and descend the steps. Then there was a startling cry and a plunge into the river. The old woman echoed the cry; but there were none to hear it, and she was powerless to aid. That a human soul was struggling in the water was certain; and she called and called, but called in vain. She was shut up in the house, unable to move; and there were none outside to hear her. In her grief and distress she at length pulled the bed-clothes over her ears, that she might hear no more (if more was to be heard) of the death agony. Twenty minutes or so, and then the girl came in. The old woman brought her head from under the clothes, and stated what had occurred, and the girl went and looked at the river. But it was flowing along peacefully, showing no signs that anything of the sort had happened. Not a creature was on the path on either side, so far as her eyes could see in the moonlight; and she came to the conclusion that her grandmother must have been mistaken. “She has odd fancies,” said the child to herself, “and thinks she hears things that nobody else never hears.” At ten o’clock Diggs came home. Now, this man had a propensity for yielding to an infirmity to which many others also yield--that of drinking too freely. It is true that this did not often occur; but when it did happen, it was usually at a time when his services were especially required. It is very much the case in this world: we often do things, whether good ones or bad ones, just at the wrong moment. Diggs arrived at home, stupid. His old mother called him to her room, and told him what she had heard; but she could make little impression upon him. As his young daughter had done, he took a survey of the river, but only from the windows of his house--the girl had gone on to the bank--and then he tumbled into bed, and slept heavily until the morning. Up betimes, he remembered what had been told to him, and went out of doors, half expecting possibly to see something floating on the surface. “I was detained out last night on an errand,” explained he to some three or four stragglers who had gathered round him, “and when I got in, my old mother told me a cock-and-bull story of a cry and a splash, as if somebody had fallen into the river. It don’t look much like it, though.” “A dead dog, maybe,” suggested one of the idlers. “They’re always throwing rubbish into this river on the sly.”