The girl from nowhere

by Mrs. Baillie Reynolds

There was satisfaction in seeing the blue-veined lids once more descend, as unconsciousness enfolded the suffering girl.

The long minutes ticked on, and now and then a shouting, or sudden noise out of the night, set his nerves a-quiver. But nothing happened. More than an hour went by, and still he sat so, almost past caring what might next befall them. That Rona should continue to sleep, with her head upon his shoulder, seemed the one important thing.

The footfall of Comrade Dawkes returning, and the flood of cold air which accompanied his entrance, brought back the necessity for action with a pang.

"Come along, and look slippy," he said.

Rona was so stiff that Felix could hardly lift her, and he had almost to carry her along to where there loomed out of the darkness the dim bulk of a barge, lying low in the water, with her cargo of tarpaulin-covered hay.

Dawkes had arranged with his son-in-law, an unamiable-looking person with a wall eye, to take Felix on in place of the boy left behind with "pneumony," and to pay him the princely sum of seven shillings for the trip, which he expected would last four days, and during which he undertook to feed both Felix and the girl. The night-watchman had, moreover, bestowed upon the eloping pair a truss of hay, such as formed his perquisite from the barges mooring at the wharf, and which he usually disposed of to carters and van-owners of his acquaintance. This truss he had opened, and disposed so as to make a comfortable couch for Rona, with a tarpaulin canopy, stretched upon a hurdle, cunningly inserted between the tightly piled trusses of the cargo.

It was an ingeniously planned bed; and though the son-in-law, who was very deaf, in addition to the imperfection of his vision, seemed to dislike the notion of his female passenger, Felix felt that it was all far better arranged than he could have hoped for. His sole discomfort lay in the notion that, to secure this freedom, he had been obliged to put himself under obligations to a "Comrade"—one of the old lawless gang—and one never quite knew what form payment to the Brotherhood might have to take. However, so far, all was clear gain. He wrung the hand of the night-watchman and stepped aboard, while with shouts and oaths the barge got itself attached to the tail of another, which was tied to a third, which depended upon a dirty, noisy, squat steam-tug, the owner of which poured forth his language in a torrent which could hardly be equaled, one would think, even in California.

They were to be towed, it appeared, as far as the beginning of the Wey navigation, so Felix's stable duties would not yet begin. The son-in-law, whose name was Doggett, took the tiller during the critical night hours. Felix went to see how fared his charge. The hay was clean, warm, and fragrant, and she, worn out with misery, relieved at their escape, bemused by her first taste of stimulant, sank off to sleep in a few minutes, and left the young man free to go aft, and take lessons in steering a barge, which is an art not to be acquired in five minutes, even by one who has stroked his College eight.

The waters of the dirty river, slapped and churned by the passage of the tug, bumped and billowed in light and darkness. The yellow, sickly lights of the shore mingled with the riding lights of the craft around, until the young man's brain reeled. The night was cold, and he was dog tired. His head sank from time to time on his chest. At last Doggett seized him by the arm and shook him.

"Go, sleep it out," he bawled, as if Felix, like himself, was hard of hearing. "I'll call yer when I want yer."