"Shall we call this a boat out at sea,
We four sailors rowing?
Can you fancy it? Well, as for me,
I feel the salt wind blowing.
Up, up and down, lazy boat!
On the top of a wave we float;
Down we go with a rush.
Far off I see the strand
Glimmer; our boat we'll push
Ashore on fairyland."
—A. Keary.
And now it is time to return to the two little travellers.
The big red barge-boat came swinging slowly through the lock as the children came close to the canal. They were too late to get aboard there, and they hung back in disappointment and indecision. After clearing the lock and exchanging a word or two with the woman at the toll, the bargeman had laid himself down upon a heap of empty sacks, to take a nap most probably, leaving his boy in charge of the tiller. Soon bargee was wrapped in slumber, and the boy buried in a penny dreadful. Darby and Joan did not desire to disturb either of them. They were anxious above all things to get on board the boat unnoticed; so, after a hurried consultation carried on in whispers, they agreed that their best plan would be to walk on to the next stopping-place—a tiny clump of cottages and a shop or two, called by courtesy a village—and make sure of embarking there. This hamlet was only about half a mile off. They could reach it easily before the barge; and keeping well in the shelter of the fringe of alders, osiers, and reeds that grew thickly in the marshy ground below the tow-path, lest the man or the lad should look about and spy them, the children trotted straight along, with their eager eyes steadfastly fixed upon the far-off hills in front.
Bargee was soon snoring lustily; the boy seemed to find his story all-absorbing; the old brown horse knew every step of the way, foot for foot, better than either of them, and required no guiding: consequently the little ones were in scarcely any danger of detection. Besides, even if the man or the boy on board the canal-boat had noticed the pair stealing along behind the bushes, neither would have thought of challenging their presence or casting upon them more than a passing glance. They would have simply accepted them for what they appeared to the casual observer—two cottage children who were either altogether motherless or sadly neglected—and then forgotten all about them. For, to be quite candid, they looked far from respectable—entirely unlike the trim, spotless little persons whom Perry had dressed with such care and precision only some hours before; bearing but small resemblance in their general cut to the dainty figures which had run the gauntlet of Aunt Catharine's eagle eyes as they sat opposite to her at breakfast early that morning.
Soon after the children's arrival at Firgrove, Miss Turner had gone carefully through their clothing,—adding a number of fresh garments to their stock, discarding others which had been purchased according to Perry's idea of fitness as being entirely unbecoming or unsuitable, laying aside for distribution among her poor a goodly quantity that had grown either so small or so shabby as to be altogether unfit for further wear—by Captain Dene's children and Miss Turner's young relatives, that is to say.
Upon this store Darby had drawn; for with an eye to thrift which would have done credit to Aunt Catharine herself, and expectation of the fresh and beautiful rig-out awaiting them in the land for which they were bound, he considered that it would be sheer and sinful extravagance to carry away with them any clothes, except what they could with an easy conscience cast aside—as Christian left his rags behind when by the Shining One he was dressed anew.
Picture them then, please!
Darby wore a velveteen suit which had once been black, but now, from stress of wear and weather, had turned a sickly green. From the scrimpy legs of the knickerbockers his knees shone bare and brown. Out of the sleeves, that reached only half-way below the elbows, his arms stuck freely, showing a broad band of untanned wrist between the button-less cuffs and the chubby, sunburnt hand. A pair of sadly-scuffed shoes, which originally had been nut-brown calf, were held upon his feet by one solitary button and a piece of string; while his headgear consisted of a sailor-hat, with battered brim, and blue ribbon band so stained and faded that only with difficulty one could make out the name upon its silken surface—H.M.S. Dreadnought—a most appropriate one for the ship in which this dauntless mariner sailed, for he had in truth a brave and fearless spirit!
As for Joan, she appeared to be even more after the tinker type than Darby. Her cotton frock had once upon a time been pink and pretty as a double daisy. Now it was washed-out, worn, and, sad to say, in several places torn. At different points the skirt had rebelliously escaped from the confinement of gathers round the waist; the back gaped open where in sundry spots the hooks and eyes had quarrelled and agreed to meet no more. On her shining golden curls she had set a cast-off garden-hat belonging to Aunt Catharine, of brown straw, in what was known as the mushroom shape. Surmounting Joan's tiny figure it looked exactly like a small umbrella, which hid her blue eyes, and shaded her pink-and-white complexion so completely that several times Darby stooped down, peeped under the floppy brim, crying merrily, much to his sister's amusement, "Anybody at home to-day? any one within here?" Her feet were dressed somewhat after the same fashion as her brother's; while round her shoulders, crossed in front and tied by Darby's fumbling fingers in a clumsy knot behind, was a faded tartan shoulder-shawl that had once been Perry's, but for many a month and day had been used as the nursery blanket of all the invalid dolls in Joan's large family.