should go, if I walked all along this path?” I said to myself, and then like a flash, the idea came, right or wrong, I could not tell, that it must go on and on to London.
It was full of hope, that thought; so full that I leaped up, and trudged on so steadily, that at the end of an hour I again saw a couple of horses in front, drawing another barge, with the rope plashing in and out of the river; but this barge was going on in the same direction as I was, and as I drew nearer I began to envy the boy riding so idly on the foremost horse, and wished it were my fate to change places with him, for one of my feet was very sore.
It pained me a good deal; but, all the same, there was a joyous feeling of freedom to cheer me on, and I limped forward, thinking how I had nothing to fear now, no dreary copying to do, and then stand shivering, expecting blows, if I had omitted a word, or forgotten to cross some t. All was bright and beautiful, with the glancing river, the glorious green meadows, and the gliding barge going so easily with the stream.
There was a stolid-looking man holding the tiller of the barge, staring dreamily before him, and smoking, looking as motionless, and smoking nearly as much, as the chimney of the cabin beside him. The barge itself was covered with great tarred cloths of a dingy black, but the woodwork about the cabin was ornamented with yellow and scarlet diamonds and ovals carved in the sides.
The man took not the slightest notice of me as I limped on, gazing at him and the gliding barge, but smoked away steadily, and I went on, getting nearer and nearer to the horses, thinking as I did so of how pleasant it would be to lie down on that black tarpaulin, and glide along upon the shiny river without a care; and it seemed to me then, ill-used and weary as I was, that the life of a bargeman would be perfect happiness and bliss.
As I drew near the boy, who was sitting sidewise on the foremost horse, with a shallow round-bottomed zinc bucket hanging from the collar on the other side, I found that he was watching me as he whistled some doleful minor ditty, pausing every now and then to crack his whip and utter a loud “Jeet!”
This was evidently a command to the horses, one of which gave its head a toss up and the other a toss down, but paid no further heed, both continuing their steady way along the tow-path, while the boy went on with his whistling.
I gradually drew up closer and closer, as the whistling kept on, to find that about every minute, as if calculated exactly, but of course from mere habit, there was the crack of the whip, the loud “Jeet?” and the nod up and nod down of the two horses.
I trudged up close alongside the boy now, being anxious to learn where the river really did run, but not liking at first to show my ignorance, so we went on for some time in silence.
He was a rough, common-looking lad, with fair curly hair, and the skin of his face all in scaly patches where it had been blistered by the sun, and I took him to be about my own age. He was dressed in a loose jacket and a pair of cord trousers, both of which were several sizes too large for him, but the jacket-sleeves had been cut off above the elbow, and the trousers were rolled up above his knees, showing his bare legs and clean white feet. His coarse shirt was clean, what could be seen of it, but the tops of the trousers were drawn up by strings over his shoulders, so that they took the place of vest.
Altogether, even to his old, muddy, torn felt hat, through which showed tufts of his curly hair, he was ragged to a degree; but he seemed as happy as the day was long and as healthy as could be, as he whistled away, stared at me, and uttered another loud “Jeet!” going a little further this time, and making it “Jeet, Sammy—jeet, Tommair-y!”
The horses this time tightened the rope a little, but only for a few moments, when it fell back into the water with a plash, the barge glided on, the horses’ hoofs crushed the sandy gravel, and the rope whisked and rustled as it brushed along the thick growth of sedge by the water-side.
“Woss the matter with yer foot, matey?” said the boy at last, breaking the ice as he gave his whip another crack, and then caught and examined the thong.
“Sore with walking,” I said; and then there was another pause, during which he kept on whistling the minor air over and over again, while I waited for another opening.
“Why don’t you take off your shoes, matey?” he said. “They allus makes my feet sore. I don’t like shoes. Jeet, Tommair-y! Jeet, Sam-mair-y?”
This was a new light, and I thought, perhaps, I should be easier, for one shoe was constantly scraping the tendon at the back of my heel. So sitting down on the grass, I untied and slipped off my shoes, my socks following, to be thrust into my pocket, and I limped on, setting my feet delicately on the gravel, which hurt them, till I changed on to the short soft turf beside the path.
The barge had passed me, but I soon overtook it, and then reached the boy, who watched me complacently as I trudged on, certainly feeling easier.
“One on ’ems a-bleeding,” said my new friend then. “Shoes allus hurts. Jeet!”
“Yes, when you walk far,” I said, the conversation beginning to warm now.
“Walked far, matey?”
“Yes, ever so far. Have you come far?”
“Pistol,” I thought he said.
“Where?” I asked.
“Bristol. Jeet, Sammy!” Crack!
“All along by the river?”
“We don’t call it the river, we call it the canal here. It’s river farther up towards London.”
“Are you going to London?” I said.
“Yes. Are you?”
“Yes,” I said; and my heart was at rest, for I knew now that which I wanted to find out without asking. This river did go right to London, and I must be on the upper part of the Thames.
We went on for some little time in silence, and then my new friend began:
“Why don’t you go and paddle yer feet in the water a bit?”
It was a good suggestion, and the shallow sparkling water looked very delicious and cool.
“Tie your shoestrings together and hing ’em on to Tommy’s collar. You can hing yer bundle, too, if yer li-ak.”
I hesitated for a moment. One boy had already appropriated my bundle, but he had not the frank honest look of the one on the horse, and besides, I did not like to seem suspicious. So, tying the shoestrings together, I hung them on the tall hame of the collar, and the bundle beside them, before going quickly over the gravel down to the shallow water.
“Turn up yer trousers!” shouted the boy; and I obeyed his good advice, ending by walking along the shallow water close behind the tow-rope, the soft sand feeling delicious to my feet as the cool water laved and eased the smarting wound.
At last I walked out with my feet rested, and the blood-stain washed away, to run forward and join my companion, who looked at me in a very stolid manner.
“Hev a ride?” he said at last.
“May I?”
“Fey-ther!”
“Hel-lo-a!”
