"IF it weren't for your finger--" said she.
"My finger is the just reward of idiocy and doesn't deserve any kind
thought from you."
"If it weren't for that, I should rather enjoy it," she said. "There's
plenty to eat left in the basket. Shall I get it out and let's have
supper before it's quite dark? I do really think it's fun. Don't you?"
"That's right," said he, with a show of bitterness, "make the best of it
out of pity for the insane idiot who landed you in this fix. Be bright,
be womanly, never let me guess that a cold, damp lock and a 'few bits of
broken vittles' are not really better than a decent supper and a roof
over your head. A fig for the elegancies of civilization and the
comforts of home! Go on being tactful. I adore it."
"I meant what I said," she answered, with gentle insistence. "I do
rather like it. I'll whine about my dinner and my looking-glass, if you
like, but I'll get the supper first. Isn't it glorious to think that
there's no one at home--where the comforts and the elegancies are--no
one to be anxious about us because we're late, and scold us when we get
home? Liberty," she ended, reflectively, "is a very beautiful thing. I
suppose no one is likely to come along this way till the shepherd comes
in the morning?"
"We'll hope for better luck," said he. "I say, you'll never trust me to
take care of you again after this silly business--"
"I don't know," she said, deliberately, "that I ever asked you to take
care of me. Did I? You were to help me--yes, and you have helped me--but
I don't think I want to be taken care of, any more than another man
would want it. I was in a difficulty and you helped me. If you were in a
difficulty and I helped you, you wouldn't expect me to take care of you
forever, would you?"
"I don't know," he said. "If you hadn't been extraordinarily sensible I
should still be there with my hand in the thumbscrew."
"Did you think," she asked, sweetly, "that all women were inevitably
silly?"
Charles raised his head and growled.
"There," said she, "you see, even Charles repudiates the idea."
If this was so, Charles instantly repudiated the idea with more growls
and the added violence of barks. She muffled him in the cloak and
listened. A footstep on the towing-path.
"Hullo!" she called, and Edward added, "Hi, you there!" and Charles,
wriggling forcefully among the folds of the cloak, barked again.
"That ought to fetch them, whoever they are," said Edward, and stood up.
Even as he did so a voice said, urgently and quite close above them.
"'Ush, can't yer!" and a head and shoulders leaning over the edge of the
lock came as a dark silhouette against the clear dark blue of the starry
sky. For it was now as dark as a July night is--and that, as we know, is
never really dark at all. '"Ush!" repeated the voice. "Shut up, I tell
yer!" and, surprisingly and unmistakably, it was to the two in the boat
that he was speaking. "Make that dawg o' yours choke hisself--stow it,
can't yer! Yer don't want to be lagged, do yer? Yer aren't got 'arf a
chants once any one knows you're 'ere. Don't you know you're wanted? The
police'll be along some time in the night, and then you're done for."
"I think," said Edward, with extreme politeness, "that you are, perhaps,
mistaking us for acquaintances, whereas we are strangers to you. But if
you could be so kind as to open the gates and lend us a crowbar to get
through the other locks you would not be the loser."
"I know yer, right enough," said the man. "Yer ain't no strangers to me.
It was me as 'ired yer the boat up at the Anchor. The boss 'e sent me
out to look for yer. Only 'e doesn't know I know about your being
wanted. Least said soonest mended's what I allus say. Where's yer crow
got to?"
"In the water," said Edward; "dropped off the lock gate."
"Clumsy!" said the man, giving the word its full vocative value.
"Whereabouts?"
"Just over there," said Edward.
"Then yer tuck up yer shirt-sleeve and run yer 'and down and pass that
there crow up to me. There ain't not above two foot o' water in 'er, if
there's that."
To your Medway man the lock is as unalterably feminine as his ship to a
sailor.
It was she who plunged her arm in the water, and, sure enough, there was
the crowbar lying quietly and tamely beside them--"like a pet poodle,"
as she said.
"Give me ahold of that there crow," said the man. He lay face downward
and reached down an arm. Edward stood on the thwart and reached up. The
crowbar changed hands, and the head and shoulders of the deliverer
disappeared.
"I don't see what he wants the bar for," said Edward. "The lock's empty.
Perhaps he means to go on ahead and open the other locks for us. I
wonder who he took us for, and what the poor wretches are 'wanted'
for--"
"It's a sinister word in that connection, isn't it?" said she. "Wanted!"
They pushed the boat toward the lower lock gate and held on to the
lock-side, waiting till the lock gate should open and they should be
able to pass out and begin their journey down the river to the Anchor.
But the gates did not open, and almost at once a tremor agitated the
boat. Edward tightened his grip of the boat-hook as the incoming rush of
water took the boat's nose and held it hard.
"The idiot!" he said. "The silly idiot! He's filling the lock."
He was, and the rush of the incoming water quite drowned any
remonstrances that might have been addressed to him. Boat and water rose
swiftly, the upper gates opened, and, as they passed through, their
deliverer laid his hand on the gunwale, as though to aid the boat's
passage. But, instead, he stopped it.
"See 'ere, gov'ner," he said, low and hoarse and exactly like a
conspirator, "I couldn't bleat it out for all the country to hear while
yer was down in the lock, but I knows as you're wanted and yer may think
it lucky it's me as come after yer and not the gov'ner nor yet the
police."
"I do really think," said she, softly, "that you're making a mistake.
The police don't really want us."
"Oh, I got a bit of candle," was the unexpected rejoinder. "Get the
young lady to hold the cloak up so as it don't shine from 'ere to
Tunbridge to give yer away like, and yer light the dip and 'ave a squint
at this 'ere."
He held out the candle and matches and a jagged rag of newspaper.
"'Ere," he said, "'longside where I'm 'olding of it."
She made a sort of screen of the cloak. Edward lit the candle, and when
the flame had darkened and brightened again he read as follows:
MISSING--Young lady, height five feet six, slight
build, dark hair and eyes, pale complexion. Last seen
at Jevington, Sussex. Wearing black chiffon and satin
dress, black satin slippers, and a very large French
circular cloak with stitched collar. Has no money and
no hat. Twenty pounds will be paid to any one giving
information as to her whereabouts.
"Well," said Edward, blowing out the candle, "this lady has a hat, as
you see, and she hasn't a black dress and satin slippers. Thank you for
letting us through; here's something to get a drink with. Hand over the
crowbar, please, and good night to you."
"Not so fast, sir," said the man, still holding on, "and don't make to
jab me over the fingers with the boat-'ook, like what you was thinking
of. I'm your friend, I am. I see that piece in the paper 'fore ever a
one of them, but I never let on. That's why the gov'ner sent me, 'cause
why--'e didn't think I knowed, and 'e means to 'ave that twenty pounds
hisself."
"But," said she, "you see, I have got a hat and--"
"Yes, miss," said the man, "an' you've got the cloak, large and black
and stitched collar, and all; it's that what's give yer away."
"But supposing I _was_ the young lady," she said, grasping Edward's arm
in the darkness, and signaling to him not to interfere with feminine
diplomacy, "you wouldn't give me up to the police, would you? I wouldn't
give you up if the police wanted you."
"'Course I wouldn't," he answered, earnestly. "Ain't that what I'm
a-saying? I'm 'ere to 'elp yer do a bolt. The minute I saw that there
bit in the paper I says to myself, 'It's them,' and why shouldn't I 'ave
the twenty pounds as well as any one else?"
"There," said Edward, in a low voice, "you see! Let me deal with him."
But again her hand implored. "You're going to give us up to the police
for twenty pounds?" she said, reproachfully.
He groaned. "'Ow yer do talk!" he said. "Women is all alike when it
comes to talking. Stop talking and listen to me. Can't yer understand
plain words? What yer got to do is to leave the boat at Mutton Worry
Lock--that's three locks up--bunk across the fields to Tunbridge. If yer
got money enough--and I'm sartain yer 'as, by the looks of yer--yer 'ire
one of them motors and get away as fast as yer can. Get one at the
Castle. Say yer going to Brighton, and when yer get away from the town
tell the chap to drive t'other way."
"That's a good plan," said she.
"I mapped it all out as I come along," he said, with simple pride. "And,
mind yer, I'm trusting yer like I shouldn't have thought I'd 'a' trusted
nobody. 'Ave yer got the twenty pounds about yer?" he asked, anxiously.
"No," said she.
"Can't be helped, then." He breathed a sigh of resignation. "I'll just
give yer my direction and yer send the ready to me. 'Oo says I don't
trust yer?"
"You mean," said Edward, slowly, and would not be checked any longer by
that hand on his arm--"you mean that you expect us to give you twenty
pounds not to give us up to the police? The police have nothing to do
with us. The whole thing's moonshine. Take your hand off the boat and
get along home."
"Any man," said he who had been called Neptune--"any man as had the
feelings of a man would think of this--young lady. Even if yer was to
prove to Poad as yer wasn't wanted for nothin' criminal--it's none so
easy to make Poad see anything, neither"--he ended, abruptly, and began
anew. "Look 'ere, gov'ner, on account of your lady I say do a bolt. An'
why should I be the loser? I only got to stick to the boat, whichever
way yer go--up and down--and soon as yer land where there's a copper,
lagged yer'll be to a dead cart, and only yourself to thank for it.
Whereas I'm only trying to be your friend, if you'd only see it."
"I don't see why you should be so friendly," said Edward, now entirely
losing control of the situation.
"Nor I shouldn't see it, neither, if it was only you," was the
rejoinder.
"He's quite right," she whispered. "Promise what he wants and let's get
away. I know exactly what Poad is like. We should never make him
understand anything. I couldn't bear it. Let's go. If you've got twenty
pounds, give it to him and let's go."
"Think of your young lady," repeated the voice out of the darkness. "If
yer promise to let me 'ear by the post, I'll take your word for it. I'm
your true friend, and I knows a gentleman when I sees one."
"If you were a true friend," said Edward, "you wouldn't want paying for
minding your own business."
"Aw, naw," he said, "'old 'ard, gov'ner. Ain't it a man's own business
when there's twenty pounds to be made? Says I to myself, if it's worth
some one's while to pay the money to catch 'er, it's well worth the
gentleman's while to shell out and keep 'er, and. . . ."
"Oh, hold your tongue!" said Edward. "Go on ahead and get the next lock
ready. I'll give you the money. The lady wishes it."
"She's got her 'ead the right way on," said the friend in need. "Pull
ahead, sir."
"But you can't, with your finger like that," she said. "I'll pull."
"Why not let me?" Neptune suggested. "We'd get there in 'alf the time,"
he added, with blighting candor.
So Neptune pulled the boat up to Mutton Worry Lock and the two crouched
under the cloak. Charles, who might have been expected to be hostile to
so strange a friend, received him with almost overwhelming
condescension. At Mutton Worry Lock the deliverer said:
"Now 'ere yer deserts the ship, and 'ere I finds 'er and takes her back.
And look 'ere, sir, I'm nobody's enemy but my own, so I am. And of
course if I was to 'ave the twenty pounds it's my belief I'd drink
myself under the daisies inside of a week. Let me 'ear by the
post--William Beale, care of the Anchor Hotel--and send me ten bob a
week till the money's gone. It'll come easier to yer, paying it a
little at a time like--and better for me in the long run. Yer ought to
be a duke, yer ought. I never thought you'd 'a' ris' to the twenty. I'd
'a' been satisfied with five--and that'll show yer whether I'm a true
friend or not."
"I really think you are," she said, and laughed gently. "Good-by."
"Good evening, miss, and thank yer, I'm sure. Never say good-by; it's
unlucky between friends."
"Here's a sovereign," said Edward, shortly. "Good night. You're jolly
fond of the sound of your own voice, aren't you?"
"Sort of treat for me, sir," said Beale, always eagerly explanatory.
"Don't often 'ear it. D'you know what they calls me at the Anchor, owing
to me 'aving learnt to keep my tongue atween my teeth, except among
friends? 'William the Silent's' my pet name. A gent as comes for the
angling made that up, and it stuck, it did. Bear to the left till you
come to the boat-'ouse, cater across the big meadow, and you'll hit
Tunbridge all right, by the Printing Works. So long, sir; so long,
miss."
Thus they parted.
"What an adventure!" she said; "and I believe William the Silent
believes himself to be a model of chivalrous moderation. He would have
been satisfied with five pounds."
"I believe he would, too," said Edward, with a grudging laugh. "It's
your _beaux yeux_. The man has gone home feeling that he has as good as
sacrificed fifteen pounds to a quixotic and romantic impulse. Wretched
blackmailer though he is, he could not resist a princess."
"I like William," she said, decisively. "After all, as he says, one must
live. Let's leave the cloak under this hedge. Shall we? It's like
getting rid of the body. And I'll buy a flaxen wig to-morrow. And do you
think it would be a help if I rouged a little and wore blue spectacles?
It will be the saving of us, of course."
"I hope to heavens we get a motor in Tunbridge," said he. "You must be
tired out."
"I'm not in the least tired," she said. "I'm stepping out like a man,
don't you think? I've enjoyed everything beyond words. What a world it
is for adventures once you step outside the charmed circle of your
relations. Look at all the things that have happened to us already!"
"I didn't mean anything to happen except pleasant things," said he.
"Ah!" she said, with a fleeting seriousness, "life isn't like that. But
there's been nothing but pleasant things so far--at least, almost
nothing."
"Won't you take my arm?" he said.
"What for?"
"To help you along, I suppose," he said, lamely.
She stopped expressly to stamp her foot. "I don't want helping along,"
she said. "I'm not a cripple or a baby--and--"
He did not answer. And they walked on in silence through the starry,
silent night. She spoke first.
"I don't want helping along," she said. "But I'd like to take your arm
to show there's no ill-feeling. You take an arm on the way to dinner,"
she assured the stars, "and why not on the way to Tunbridge?"
The way to Tunbridge was short. They found a car, and the night held no
more adventures for them.
But in a sheltered nook in the weir stream below Jezebel's Lock a candle
set up on a plate illuminated the green of alder and ash and the smooth
blackness of the water, shedding on a lonely supper that air as of a
festival which can only be conferred by candle-light shining on the
green of growing leaves. There, out of sight of the towing-path, Mr.
William Beale, charmed to fancy and anticipation by the possession of a
golden milled token, made himself a feast of the "broken vittles" in the
derelict Midlothian basket, and in what was left of the red wine of
France toasted the lady of his adventure.
"'Ere's to 'er," he said to the silence and mysteries of wood and water.
'"Ere's to 'er. She was a corker, for sure. Sight too good for a chap
like 'im," he insisted, adding the natural tribute of chivalry to
beauty; drank again and filled his pipe. Edward, from sheer force of
habit, had smoothed the parting with tobacco.
"Not but," said William the Silent--"not but what I've known worse than
'im, by long chalks. Ten bob a week--and 'e'll send it along, too--good
as a pension. 'E'll send it along."
He did. William the Silent had not misjudged his man.