True Tilda Part 16

he added, looking up as one who would stand no contradiction, "is the 'alf of two-an'-six . . . You'll excuse me, missy, but business first an' pleasure afterwards. We're stoppin' here for the day."

"For the day?" echoed Tilda, with a dismayed look astern. "An' we've on'y come this far!"

"Pretty good goin', _I_ should call it," Mr. Bossom a.s.sured her cheerfully. "Six locks we've pa.s.sed while you was asleep, not countin'

the stop-lock. But maybe you 're not used to travel by ca.n.a.l?"

"I thank the Lord, no; or I'd never 'ave put Mr. 'Ucks up to it.

Why, I'd _walk_ it quicker, crutch an' all."

"What'd you call a reas'nable price for eggs, now--at this time o'

year?" asked Mr. Bossom, abstractedly sucking the stump of a pencil and frowning at his notebook. But of a sudden her words seemed to strike him, and he looked up round-eyed.

"You ain't tellin' me _you_ put this in 'Ucks's mind?"

"'Course I did," owned Tilda proudly.

"An' got me sent to Stratford-on-Avon!" Mr. Bossom added. "Me that stood your friend when _you_ was in a tight place!"

"No, I didn'. It was 'Ucks that mentioned Stratford--said you'd find a cargo of beer there, which sounded all right: an' Mortimer jumped at it soon as ever he 'eard the name. Mortimer said it was the dream of his youth an' the perspiration of his something else--I can't tell the ezact words; but when he talked like that, how was I to guess there was anything wrong with the place?"

"There ain't anything wrong wi' the _place_, that I know by," Mr. Bossom admitted.

"But I remember another thing he said, because it sounded to me even funnier. He said, 'Sweet swan of Avon upon the banks of Thames, that did so please Eliza and our James.' Now what did he mean by that?"

Mr. Bossom considered and shook his head.

"Some bank-'oliday couple, I reckon; friends of his, maybe. But about that swan--Mortimer must 'a-been talkin' through his hat. Why to get to the Thames that bird'd have to go up the Stratford-on-Avon to Kingswood cut, down the Warwick an' Birmingham to Budbrooke--with a trifle o'

twenty-one locks at Hatton to be worked or walked round; cross by the Warwick an' Napton--another twenty-two locks; an' all the way down the Oxford Ca.n.a.l, which from Napton is fifty miles good."

"She'd be an old bird before she got there, at our pace," Tilda agreed.

"But, o' course, Mr. Bossom, if we want to get to Stratford quick, an'

you don't, you'll make the pace what you like an' never mind us."

"Who said I didn' want to get to Stratford?" he asked almost fiercely, and broke off with a groan.

"Oh, it's 'ard!--it's 'ard! . . . And me sittin' here calcilatin' eggs an' milk domestic-like and thinkin' what bliss . . . But you don't understand. O' course you don't. Why should you?"

Tilda placed her hands behind her back, eyed him for half-a-minute, and sagely nodded.

"Well, I never!" she said. "Oh, my goodness gracious mercy me!"

"I can't think what you 're referrin' to," stammered Mr. Bossom.

"So we're in love, are we?"

He cast a guilty look around.

"There's Mortimer, comin' down the path, an' only two fields away."

"And it's a long story, is it? Well, I'll let you off this time," said Tilda. "But listen to this, an' don't you fergit it. If along o' your dawdlin' they lay hands on Arthur Miles here, I'll never fergive you-- no, never."

"You leave that to me, missie. And as for dawdlin', why if you understood about ca.n.a.ls you 'd know there's times when dawdlin' makes the best speed. Now just you bear in mind the number o' things I've got to think of. First, we'll say, there's you an' the boy. Well, who's goin' to look for you here, aboard an innercent boat laid here between locks an' waitin' till the full of her cargo comes down to Tizzer's Green wharf or Ibbetson's? Next"--he checked off the items on his fingers--"there's the Mortimers. In duty to 'Ucks, I got to choose Mortimer a pitch where he'll draw a 'ouse. Bein' new to this job, I'd like your opinion; but where, thinks I, 'll he likelier draw a 'ouse than at Tizzer's Green yonder?--two thousand op'ratives, an' I doubt if the place has ever seen a travellin' theayter since it started to grow.

Anyway, Mortimer has been pus.h.i.+n' inquiries: an' that makes Secondly.

Thirdly, I don't know much about play-actors, but Mortimer tells me he gets goin' at seven-thirty an' holds 'em spellbound till something after ten; which means that by the time we've carted back the scenery _an'_ s.h.i.+pped _an'_ stowed it, _an'_ got the tarpaulins on, _an'_ harnessed up, we shan't get much change out o' midnight. Don't lose your patience now, because we haven't come to the end of it yet--not by a long way.

By midnight, say, we get started an' haul up to Knowlsey top lock, which is a matter of three miles. What do we find there?"

"Dunno," said Tilda wearily. "A bra.s.s band per'aps, an' a nillumynated address, congratylatin' yer."

Sam ignored this sarcasm.

"We find, likely as not, a dozen boats hauled up for the night, blockin'

the fairway, an' all the crews ash.o.r.e at the 'Ring o' Bells' or the 'Lone Woman,' where they doss an' where the stablin' is. Not a chance for us to get through before mornin'; an' then in a crowd with everybody wantin' to know what Sam Bossom's doin' with two children aboard.

Whereas," he concluded, "if we time ourselves to reach Knowlsey by seven in the mornin', they'll all have locked through an' left the coast clear."

Said Tilda, still contemptuous--

"I 'd like to turn Bill loose on this navigation o' yours, as you call it."

"Oo's Bill?"

"He works the engine on Gavel's roundabouts; an' he's the best an' the cleverest man in the world."

"Unappre'shated, I spose?"

"Why if you 'ad Bill aboard this boat, in less'n a workin' day he'd 'ave her fixed up with boiler an' engine complete, an' be drivin' her like a train."

Mr. Bossom grinned.

"I'd like to see 'im twenty minutes later, just to congratilate 'im.

You see, missie, a boat can't go faster than the water travels past 'er--which is rhyme, though I made it myself, an' likewise reason.

Can she, now?"

"I s'pose not," Tilda admitted doubtfully.

"Well now, if your friend Bill started to drive th' old _Success to Commerce_ like a train, first he'd be surprised an' disappointed to see her heavin' a two-foot wave ahead of her--maybe more, maybe less--along both banks; an' next it might annoy 'im a bit when these two waves fell together an' raised a weight o' water full on her bows, whereby she 'd travel like a slug, an' the 'arder he drove the more she wouldn' go; let be that she'd give 'im no time to cuss, even when I arsked 'im perlitely what it felt like to steer a monkey by the tail. Next _an'_ last, if he should 'appen to find room for a look astern at the banks, it might vex 'im--bein' the best o' men as well as the cleverest--to notice that he 'adn't left no banks, to speak of. Not that 'twould matter to 'im pers'nally--'avin' no further use for 'em."

Tilda, confounded by this close reasoning, was about to retreat with dignity under the admission that, after all, ca.n.a.l-work gave no scope to a genius such as Bill's, when 'Dolph came barking to announce the near approach of Mr. Mortimer.

Mr. Mortimer, approaching with a gait modelled upon Henry Irving's, was clearly in radiant mood. Almost he vaulted the stile between the field and the ca.n.a.l bank. Alighting, he hailed the boat in nautical language--

"Ahoy, Smiles! What cheer, my hearty?"

"Gettin' along nicely, sir," reported Mr. Bossom. "Nicely, but peckish.

The same to you, I 'ope."

"Good," was the answer. "Speak to the mariners: fall to't yarely, or we run ourselves aground. Bestir, bestir!"

Tilda, who for the last minute or so had been unconsciously holding Arthur Miles by the hand, was astonished of a sudden to find it trembling in hers.