Somehow or other that idea about my boots being in antagonism to me
seemed to pervade the whole of my slumbers till morning, when one of
them, I fancied, had turned terribly vicious, and was kicking me hard in
the side.
I could not move, and the kicking seemed to go on, till a more vigorous
blow than before roused me to consciousness; but still for a few moments
I could not make out where I was, only that it was very dark and stuffy,
and that. I felt stiff and sore.
Just then a gruff voice awoke my mind as well as my body, and I found
that some one was administering heavy pokes through the tarpaulin with
what seemed to be a piece of wood.
"All right, feyther," cried Jack just then; and as we scrambled out from
beneath the tent I found it was grey dawn, that a heavy mist hung over
the river, and that Jack's father had been poking at the tarpaulin with
the end of a hitcher, the long iron-shod pole used in navigating the
barge.
"Going to lie abed all day?" he growled. "Git them horses to."
"Come along, matey; never mind your boots," cried Jack, and he leaped
ashore.
I did not like leaving my bundle behind, but I felt bound to help, and
following Jack's example, I helped him to catch the horses, which were
soon attached to the tow-line thrown ashore by the bargeman, who cast
loose the mooring ropes, and with the stars still twinkling above our
heads we were once more on our way, Jack walking beside the horse and I
barefooted beside him.
My feet did not pain me now, but I felt that to replace my boots would
be to chafe them again, so I contented myself with letting them ride,
while for the present I made my way afoot.
My proceedings as we went along seemed to greatly interest Jack, who
stared hard as he saw me stoop down and wash my face and hands at a
convenient place in the river, for a shake and a rub of his curly head
seemed to constitute the whole of his toilet. My hair I smoothed as I
walked by his side, while he looked contemptuously at my little
pocket-comb.
"That wouldn't go through my hair," he said at last. Then in the same
breath, "Old woman's up."
I turned to see how he knew it, expecting his mother to be on the little
deck: but the only thing visible besides Jack's father was a little curl
of smoke from the iron chimney in front of the rudder.
"That means brakfass," said Jack, grinning; "don't you want yourn?"
I said I did, and asked how soon we should get to a lock where I could
buy some bread and milk.
"Don't you waste your money on bread and milk," said my companion,
"there'll be lots o' brakfass for both on us. You wait till we get
farther on and we can get some apples and a bottle of ginger-beer."
It seemed so fair an arrangement that when the shrill voice summoned
Jack to fetch his breakfast I shared it with him, and so I did his
dinner and tea, while we afterwards regaled ourselves with fruit, and
sweets, and cider, or ginger-beer.
This went on day after day, for though the pace was slow I found that I
could not have got on faster. Besides which, I had endless rides,
Jack's proceedings with me never once seeming to awaken either interest
or excitement on the part of his parents. In fact, Jack's father seemed
to occupy the whole of his time in leaning upon the tiller and smoking,
with the very rare exceptions that he might occasionally make use of the
hitcher in rounding some corner. As for the passing of other barges,
the men upon them seemed to do the greater part of the necessary work in
lifting tow-ropes. At the locks, too, he would stolidly stare at Jack
and me as we turned the handles with the lock-keeper, and then perhaps
grunt approval.
Jack's mother appeared to spend all her time in cooking and other
domestic arrangements, for she never showed herself on deck except to
announce the readiness of a meal by a shrill shout for her boy, rarely
speaking a word to him at such times as he took his food from her hands.
Life on the river seemed to breed taciturnity, and though we boys
generally had something to say, for the most part we jogged on silently
with the horses, who hung their heads and kept on their course as if
half asleep.
To me it was a dreamy time of constant journeying by the shining river;
for at last we passed through a lock into the Isis, and then continued
our way on and on through locks innumerable till we passed out again
into what I suppose must have been the Grand Junction or Regent's
Canal--to this day I am not sure which. The hundred miles or so I was
to have walked to London must have been more than doubled by the
turnings and doublings of the river; but I was never tired, and Jack
never wearied of my society. There was always something to see in the
ever-changing scenery, and sometimes, if we came to a stoppage early in
the evening, Jack brought out a rough line and a willow wand, and we
fished for perch by some rushing weir.
I could have been content to go on for ever leading such a free,
enjoyable life, like some young gipsy, so peaceable and happy seemed my
existence as compared to that with Mr Blakeford; but at last, after a
very long, slow journey, we began to near the metropolis, the goal of my
wanderings, and one evening the pleasant communings of Jack and myself
were suddenly brought to an end.
We had been making slow progress along the canal as it wound now amongst
houses and large buildings. The pleasant fields were far behind, and
the water was no longer bright. It seemed, too, as if we had left the
sun behind, while the tow-path had long grown so hard and rough that I
was glad to get my boots out of the bundle in which they were tied up
and wear them once again.
"Here, you sir," Jack's father shouted to me from the barge, "you must
sheer off now."
It was said in a rough, peremptory fashion that was startling: but he
took no further notice of me, only went on smoking, and I went back to
Jack, who was now seated on the horse just as at our first meeting.
"Feyther say you must go now?"
"Yes," I said dolefully.
"Then you'd better cut off. I say, feyther!"
"Hullo!"
"Lash the tiller, and go and get his bundle and chuck it ashore."
The great rough fellow methodically did as he was told--fastening the
rudder, going slowly forward, and fishing out my bundle from under the
tarpaulin, and turning to me:
"Ketch!" he shouted, and he threw the bundle from the barge to the
shore, where I caught it, and he slowly plodded back, after giving me a
friendly nod.
I took my bundle under my arm and rejoined Jack, who was whistling his
minor air, and then we boys looked at each other dolefully.
"Aintcher going?" said Jack at last.
"Yes," I said, "I'm going directly." Then, quickly pulling out a little
penknife I had in my pocket, I held it to Jack. "Will you have that,
Jack?" I said.
His eyes sparkled as he took it, but he did not speak.
"Do you think I might give your father something for letting me come up
along with you?" I said.
Jack stared in a dull, stolid way for a moment, the idea being so novel
to him. Then his face lit up and he checked the horses.
"Hold on, fey-ther," he shouted; and as if it was quite right to obey
his son's words, the great fellow steered the long barge so that it came
close in.
"There's a beer-shop," said Jack, pointing to a place close by the
towing-path, all glorious with blue and gold announcements of Barclay,
Perkins and Co.'s Entire. "You go and get a pot o' porter--it's
threepence ha'penny, mind--and give it the old man; we'll wait."
I ran up to the door of the public-house and asked the man in
shirt-sleeves and white apron for a pot of porter, which he drew in the
bright pewter vessel, and I paid for it with one of my sixpences,
received my change, and then had to make solemn assurance that I would
bring back the pot before I was allowed to take it down to the
canal-side, where Jack and his father were waiting.
The latter's face was as stolid as ever as I went up to him; but there
was a little extra opening of his eyes as he saw the foaming liquid in
the bright pewter and stretched out his hand.
"Beer ain't good for boys," he said gruffly; and then, blowing off the
froth, he put the vessel to his lips, and slowly poured it all down,
without stopping, to the very last drop; after which he uttered a heavy
sigh of either pleasure or regret, and brought his eyes to bear on me.
"Feyther likes a drop o' beer," said Jack.
"Ketch!" said "father," and he threw the empty pot to me, which luckily
I caught, and stood watching him as he went to the tiller. "Go on!"
Jack gave me a nod, cracked his whip, and the horses drew the slack rope
along the cindery tow-path till it was tight. Jack's father paused in
the act of refilling his pipe and gave me another nod, and Jack's
mother's head came above the hatchway to stare at me as the barge moved,
and I stood watching it with my bundle under my arm and the bright
pewter vessel in my hand.
My reverie was interrupted by a shout from the public-house door, and I
took the pot back, to return once more to the towing-path, sick at heart
and despondent, as I thought of the pleasant days of my short vagabond
career.
It was like parting with very good friends, and I sat down at last upon
a log, one of a pile of timber, full of regrets; for these rough people
had in their way been very kind to me, and I thought that perhaps I
should never see them any more.