The prospect, though pleasing, was too remote to satisfy Joan's immediate craving, or fancy rather, for she was not nearly so thirsty as she indicated, and she kept on whimpering,—
"Bo—o—o! I want a drink—I wants my tea!"
Darby always felt helpless when Joan went on crying in that persistent way, and he looked about him in despair. Then he started up in haste, at the same time dragging at his sister's hand.
"Come on!" he cried. "See, the horse has started; the Smiling Jane's moving. They're a good way in front. We'll have to run a bit to catch up on them."
Thus opportunely diverted from brooding on her grievance, Joan quickly dried her eyes, trotted contentedly along by her brother's side, and soon they arrived quite close to the rude wharf, where the boat would stop long enough to deliver the goods intended for the village and take in some fresh cargo to be handed out at one of the hamlets further on.
As the boat came in a number of people were collected on the wharf waiting to receive their goods, because to this out-of-the-way place the canal-boat served instead of a carrier's cart; therefore all kinds of things—from bags of corn, tons of coal, sacks of potatoes, down to small packages—were sent and received by this route, and the arrival of bargee and his boat made quite a break in the uneventful lives of the inhabitants of that remote, far-scattered district. They chatted, laughed, shouted, and bandied jokes with each other and the bargeman, who had sprung from his craft the moment she was made fast to the wharf, and stamped about, up and down, as if he was glad to find himself with plenty of elbow-room once more.
In the hubbub and general bustle the children had little or no difficulty in stealing unobserved on board the barge. They had been on her once before with a friendly old bargeman but recently retired to give place to a younger, more active man, who was a stranger on the route, consequently did not know the little folks from Firgrove. Darby drew Joan behind him, and making straight below for the bunker, called by courtesy the cabin, they curled themselves up on an old rug in its farthest, darkest corner, where, worn out with excitement and fatigue, they soon fell fast asleep.