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he spoilt and humored her with exhaustless patience.

I believe it was a statute of long standing that no child, too young to swim, should be taken out upon the water without the express permission of parents.  Whether Burton believed it to have become a dead letter, or deemed that at the mature age of sixteen he was entitled to ignore the rule, he did not make known;  but, bringing the boat alongside, [[strikethrough]] he [[/strikethrough]] handed her down in spite of our almost mutinous remonstrances;  and we were soon passing "field and farm and forest" in rapid succession as the river broadened before us into the blue-expanse of the bay.

To be continued