On and on through the quiet country, by the most silent of all thoroughfares, goes the barge. Babs is getting drowsy; father makes her a bed with a bundle of sacks, shading her face from the sun; and soon she is in the land of forgetfulness.
Were it not for the breeze that blows freshly over the meadows, the day would be a warm and drowsy one. No fear of Sammy falling asleep, however, for as the ca.n.a.l winds in and out he has to tighten or loosen the sheet according to the shift.
Just at present the sounds that are wafted towards the barge are all lulling and dreamy: the far-off singing of birds; the sound of the woodman"s axe in the distant wood; the rattle of a cart or carriage on a road that is nowhere visible; the jangle of church bells from a village that may be in the sky for anything any one can tell; and now the merry laughter of young men and maidens making hay, and these last come in sight just round the next green bend.
It suddenly occurs to Jim that a dance wouldn"t be at all a bad idea.
Ransey is some distance behind his horse, when he sees him lower his head and fling his heels high in air. This is merely preparatory; next minute he is off at a gallop, making straight for that meadow of fragrant hay, the wind catching mane and tail and blowing it straight out fore and aft.
When tired of galloping round the field, Jim bears right down upon the haymakers themselves.
"That stuff," he says, with distended nostrils, "smells uncommonly nice.
Give us a tuft."
He is fed handsomely by both lads and la.s.ses gay. But they get gayer than ever when Jim throws himself down on his back, regardless of the confused entanglement of bridle and traces. But Jim knows better than to roll on the bare ground. He has thrown down a hay-c.o.c.k for himself, and it is as good as a play to witness the girls bury him up till there is nothing to be seen of him except his four legs kicking skywards.
He gets up at last, and looks very sober and solemn. One girl kisses him on the muzzle; another is busy doing something that Ransey cannot make out, but a minute or two after this, when Jim comes thundering back, there is a huge collar of hay around his neck. Ransey mounts him bareback, and, waving his hand to the haymakers, goes galloping off to overtake the barge, and throw the hay on board. A nice little snack it will make for Jim some time later on!
To-day Mr Tandy has bought a newspaper. He had meant to read it, but he is too fond of country sights and sounds to bother about it now. In the evening, perhaps, over a pipe.
On, ever on. There are locks to get through now, several of them, and lockmen are seldom, if ever, more than half awake; but everybody knows Tandy, and has a kindly word to say to Ransey Tansey, and perhaps a kiss to blow to Babs, who has just awakened, with eyes that shine, and lips and cheeks as red as the dog-roses that trail so sweetly over a hedge near by.
The country here is higher--a bit of Wales in the midlands, one might almost say. And so it continues for some time.
Sammy takes his trick at the wheel, and prefers to steer by lying on his back and touching the tiller with one bare foot. Sammy is always original and funny, and now tells Babs wonderful stories about fairies and water-babies that he met with a long time ago when he used to dwell deep down beneath the sea.
Babs has never seen the real sea, except in pictures, and is rather hazy about it. Nevertheless, Sammy"s stories are very wonderful, and doubtless very graphic. The sail is lowered at last, and the saucy _Merry Maiden_ moored to a green bank.
The dinner is served, and all hands, including Jim, do justice to it.
I said the barge was "moored" here. Literal enough, for a wide, wild moor stretches all around. Sheep are feeding not far off, and some droll-looking ponies that Jim would like to engage in conversation.
There are patches of heath also, and stunted but prettily-feathered larch-trees now hung with points of crimson. Great patches of golden gorse hug the ground and scent the air for yards around. Linnets are singing there, and now and then the eye is gladdened by the sight of a wood-lark. Sometimes he runs along the ground, singing more sweetly even than his brother musician who loves to soar as high as the clouds.
Here is a c.o.c.k-robin, looking very independent and lilting defiance at everybody. Robins do not always live close to civilisation. This robin comes close enough to pick up the crumbs which Ransey throws towards him. He wants Ransey to believe that all the country for miles and miles around belongs to him--c.o.c.k-Robin--and that no bird save him has any real business here.
There are pine-trees waving on the hills yonder, and down below, a town much bigger than any they yet have arrived at.
But see, there is a storm coming up astern, so, speedily now, the _Merry Maiden_ is once more under way.
Babs is bundled down below, and Bob goes with her.
Presently the air is chilly enough to make one shiver. A puff of high wind, a squall we may call it, brings up an army of clouds and darkness.
Thunder rolls, and the swift lightning flashes--red, bright, intense-- then down come the rain and the big white hailstones. These rattle so loudly on the p.o.o.p deck, and on the great tarpaulin that covers the cargo, that for a time the thunder itself can scarcely be heard.
But in twenty minutes" time the sun is once more shining, the clouds have rolled far to leeward, the deck is dry, and but for the pools of water that lie in the hollows of the hard tarpaulin, no evidence is left that a summer storm had been raging.
But away with the storm has gone the wind itself, and Jim is once more called into requisition. Then onwards floats the barge.
Through many a bridge and lock, past many a hamlet, past woodlands and orchards, and fields of waving wheat, stopping only now and then at a village, till at last, and just as the sun is westering, the distant town is reached.
Oh, a most unsavoury sort of a place, a most objectionable kind of a wharf, at which to pa.s.s a night.
Tandy sends Babs and Bob below again; for a language is spoken here he does not wish the child to listen to, sights may be seen he would not that her eyes should dwell upon. Yonder is an ugly public-house with broken windows in it, and a bloated-faced, bare-armed woman, the landlady, standing with arms akimbo defiantly in the doorway. Ah! there was a time when Tandy used to spend hours in that very house. He shudders to think of it now.
There is one dead tree at the gable of this inn, which--half a century ago, perhaps--may have been a country hostelry surrounded by meadows and hedges. That tree would then be green, the air fresh and sweet around it, the mavis singing in its leafy shade. Now the sky is lurid, the air is tainted, and there is smoke everywhere. Not even the bark is left on the ghastly tree. It looks as if it had died of leprosy.
But the work is hurried through, and in a comparatively short time the _Merry Maiden_ is away out in the green quiet country.
What a blessed change from the awful town they have just left!
The sun has already gone down in such a glory of crimson, bronze, and orange, as we in this country seldom see.
This soon fades away, however, as everything that is beautiful to behold must fade.
The stars come out now in the east, and just as gloaming is merging into night the boat draws near to a little ca.n.a.l-side inn, and Jim, the horse, who is wiser far than many a professed Christian, stops of his own accord.
For Ransey had gone to sleep--oh, he often rode thus and never fell. He awakes now, however, with a start, and gazes wonderingly around him.
His eyes fall upon the sign. And there, in large white letters, the boy can read easily enough though the light is fading--the "Bargee"s Chorus."
And not only could he read, but he could remember: it was here they lay that sad, sad night--what a long time ago it seemed--when mother died.
Here was the landlord himself with his big ap.r.o.n on, a burly fellow with a kindly face, and as Tandy stepped on sh.o.r.e he was welcomed with a hearty handshake.
"Ah: Cap"en Tandy, and "ow"s you. And here is Ransey Tansey, bright and bobbish, and little Babs, and Bob, and everybody. How nice you all look! But la!" he added, "it do seem such a long, long time since you were here before."
"I"ve not had the heart to come much this way, Mr Shirley. I"ve been trading at the southern end o" the ca.n.a.l."
"And ye"ve never been here once since you put up the bit of marble slab to mark the spot where _she_ lies?"
Ransey knew his mother was referred to, and turned aside to hide the tears.
"Never since," says Tandy.
"Ah, cap"en, many"s the one as asks me about that slab. And the old squire himself stopped here one day and got all the story from me. And when I"d finished, never a word he said. He just heaved a biggish sort of a sigh, and went trotting on.
"But come in, Ransey, Babs, and Bob, and all. The night"s going to be chilly, and an air of the fire will do the children good.
"Sammy, just take the horse round to the stable. We"ll have a bit o"
frost to-night, I thinks."
Ransey runs on board for a few minutes to touch up the fire, put on the guard, and make down the beds; then he joins the group around the cosy parlour fire.
The kindly landlady, as plump and rosy as her husband, makes very much of the children, and the supper she places before them is a right hearty one, nor is Bob himself forgotten.
A very quiet and pleasant evening is spent, then good-nights are said, and the seafaring folks, as they humorously call themselves, go on board to bed.
Sammy is already sound asleep beneath the tarpaulin, and Ransey takes his little sister below to bed at once.
But father stops on deck a little while, to think and muse.