"I will pay you well, whatever you ask--"
"It is n't that,"--she hesitated,--"but I don't know who you are."
"I am myself," I said wearily; "I am tired of my place, and they don't
want me to leave. I want to go--I am too tired to stay--"
"Too hard, was it?"
"Everything was too hard. I come from Spencerville, just over the
line; you know it?"
"Oh, yes. My cousin settled there when the new tannery was built last
year."
"All my family lived there. I am now alone in the world. I have sent
my trunk on--but I want a complete rest before I go out to service
again. I thought I could get it with you. I don't want to let the
family know I have gone. The family are all away at present."
"Where have you been at work?"
"At the old manor of Lamoral, three miles away."
"I have heard of it; they bought ten barrels of apples last year." She
seemed to be thinking over some matter foreign to me, at that moment.
"Won't you take me? I am so tired."
"You say you can work?"
"Try me."
"We are going back for the second harvest. We live near Iberville. We
have orchards there, and help is always scarce at this time. Will you
help?"
"Oh, yes; anything. I can do the housework for you, if necessary."
"You don't look tough enough for that."
"Try me."
"I 'll speak to my husband when he comes in."
"All I ask of you is, that you will not let him tell anyone here that I
am on the boat."
"He has a tight mouth--a good head; he will do as I say."
"That settles it," I thought.
"If you will stay here with my baby, I 'll just step over to the
cabaret and call him out. We can talk better in the road."
"Yes."
She climbed the steps, and I heard her heavy tread on the deck--her
steps on the trestle-boards. After that, nothing for a quarter of an
hour, except the soft lap of the river running past the boat.
They came back together, the man with a lantern which he hung at the
stern.
"He says, my Jean, that you can come with us, if you will hire out for
a month."
"Tell him I will hire out to you for that time. And how much shall I
pay you for the passage?"
"Jean says that's all right,--you can't leave us unless you can
swim,--and we 're more than glad to get the help."
"I can sleep on the deck; I have a warm coat."
"Oh, no; my husband often sleeps on deck when we are at anchor; but
to-night he will not sleep at all. We go to Sorel; we must be there by
three in the morning. You can sleep in his bunk."
She parted some curtains and showed me a two-and-a-half feet wide bunk
beneath the sloping deck. I thanked her.
"If the wind should come up heavy, I shall do the steering," she said.
"I will be down after we get under way. I help Jean."
She went up the tiny companionway, and I heard her talking in a low
voice to "Jean". Soon there was a noise of trailing ropes, of a sail
being hoisted; a sound of pushing and hauling--a soft swaying motion to
the boat, then the ripple of the water under her bow.
I lay down in the bunk; the sound of the ever-flowing river soothed me.
I was worn out.