"Clumsy!" said the man, giving the word its full vocative value. "Whereabouts?"
"Just over there," said Edward.
"Then yer tuck up yer shirt-sleeve and run yer 'and down and pass that there crow up to me. There ain't not above two foot o' water in 'er, if there's that."
To your Medway man the lock is as unalterably feminine as his ship to a sailor.
It was she who plunged her arm in the water, and, sure enough, there was the crowbar lying quietly and tamely beside them—"like a pet poodle," as she said.
"Give me ahold of that there crow," said the man. He lay face downward and reached down an arm. Edward stood on the thwart and reached up. The crowbar changed hands, and the head and shoulders of the deliverer disappeared.
"I don't see what he wants the bar for," said Edward. "The lock's empty. Perhaps he means to go on ahead and open the other locks for us. I wonder who he took us for, and what the poor wretches are 'wanted' for—"
"It's a sinister word in that connection, isn't it?" said she. "Wanted!"
They pushed the boat toward the lower lock gate and held on to the lock-side, waiting till the lock gate should open and they should be able to pass out and begin their journey down the river to the Anchor. But the gates did not open, and almost at once a tremor agitated the boat. Edward tightened his grip of the boat-hook as the incoming rush of water took the boat's nose and held it hard.
"The idiot!" he said. "The silly idiot! He's filling the lock."