Mrs. Rowles followed him, saying, "There is a train at 10.22; and if I leave the dinner all ready you can boil the potatoes for yourself."
"What do you want to go for, at all? Women are always gadding about, just to show off their bonnets, or to look at other people's. Here they come—two of them!" he added.
For two steam launches, whistling horribly, were coming up, and required that the lock should be opened for them.
Nothing gave Philip and Emily more pleasure than to help their father open the lock-gates. They liked going to school, and they liked playing with their friends, but opening the lock-gates, and then watching them as they closed, was more delightful than any other kind of work or play.
Philip knew that a river on which large boats and barges went to and fro must be kept up by locks, or it would run away so fast that it would become too shallow for any but small boats. Littlebourne lock is built from one bank of the river to an island in it. There are great wooden gates, opened by great wooden handles; but to explain how a lock is made and worked would be difficult, though it is easily understood when examined. Philip and Emily had lived nearly all their lives in Littlebourne lock-house, and they knew more about boating and such matters than old men and women who live all their lives in London.
The two little steamers came into the lock as soon as Rowles, assisted by his children, opened the lower gate. The men on them talked to Rowles while the lock was being filled by the water, which came through the sluices in the upper gate.
Philip listened to this talk; but Emily went up to the other gate. Her father and brother did not notice what she was doing. They came presently and opened the upper gates, talking all the time to the men on the launches. Then they heard cries.
"Look out! take care! keep in!"
Emily's voice sounded shrill and terrified.
"This side! this side!" she was crying wildly; and she jumped about on the bank of the island as if frightened at something in the water.