'Weel naw!' exclaimed the woman, 'tha'rt wor nor I thowt. Ah be main sorry for thee. Ah'll bring t' peggy-tub, and turn't upside daan, and sot me a top, t'll do as weel as owt Ah can talk ta thee a bit—I da'ant mind. But I'm glad tha'rt better, lad. Come na,' if tha woant ha' no tea, mebbe tha'll tak a sup o' tar-water.'
By degrees Mr. Pennycomequick got to understand how he had been rescued, and where he was.
The flood had caught the Conquering Queen coal barge some way below Mergatroyd, where the land was flat, and where accordingly the water had spread and its violence was expended. It had snapped the cable that fastened the boat, and she had been carried on down the canal. She had not been lifted and stranded beyond the banks, but had gone along with the current in the proper course. The Conquering Queen was the property of Ann Dewis, who inhabited and managed her, along with a boy, a gawky lad of fifteen, all legs and arms, which became entangled among ropes and chains, and stumbled over lumps of coal and mooring posts, who never descended the ladder without slipping and falling to the bottom in a heap; and whose face and body, if not perpetually begrimed with coal dust, would have shown blue with bruises.
Ann Dewis had given up her berth to the man she had drawn out of the water, and slept on the floor beside the clothing, bird-cage, cooking utensils, and literature sacred and profane.
'Sure sartain,' said Mrs. Dewis, 't'ull be a long time wal (until) thar't better; and curias it es, but all wor profezied i' Tom Treddlehoyle i' hes predicshons for 1870. Jest yo listen till this. November: Ah look for menny foakes bein' brawt low, throo abaht t' middle ta t'end a' t'munth; hahiver, theaze a good prospecht a' ther' sooin lookin' up agean, if it is at they're laid flat a' ther' back. T'es fortunate these floods doant come offance (often) or we'd a' be ruined. Looik here, lad, ah'l clap t' pot o't'stove an' mak thee poultices for thy joints.'
Six weeks were passed by Mr. Jeremiah Pennycomequick in the cabin of the Conquering Queen, in great pain, sometimes in delirium, for he was attacked with rheumatic fever. Throughout his illness he was attended indefatigably by Ann Dewis. She called in no doctor, she procured no medicine. The sole remedy she knew and favoured, and which she exhibited against all diseases, was tar-water, a remedy easily made on board the barge, of material always at hand.
Ann Dewis was reduced to temporary inactivity by the destruction wrought by the flood. The canal was closed for repairs, and the repairs were likely to consume many months. Accordingly she could no longer ply between the coalpits and the wharf on the Humber. This enforced inactivity enabled her to devote her undivided attention to her patient. She had no house of her own—not an acre; no, not a foot of garden ground of her own in any of the various forms of ownership—freehold, copyhold or leasehold. She had no other home than her barge. She paid no taxes—no rates; the only charges that fell on her were the dues levied at the locks. And 'Darn it!' said Ann; 'that flood will ha' sent up the dues like scaldin' water sends up t'momenter.'
She belonged to no parish, came into no census, was attached to no denomination, and was identifiable as a Yorkshire woman of the West Riding only by her brogue. When the fever quitted Jeremiah Pennycomequick, it left him weak as a child. He lay in the berth powerless to rise, and long after his mind had cleared his joints were swollen and painful. He foresaw that many weeks, perhaps months, must elapse before he regained his former strength.
She did her best to amuse her patient as well as to cure him. She read to him the richest jokes out of 'Tom Treddlehoyle,' and puzzled him with questions from the same, compounded as conundrums. But what interested him chiefly was her account of herself.
She had been married, but that was nowt but a scratch, she said. 'Wunce I thowt for sartain sure ah'd hev to give up to be Dewis, and stick to the Schofield.'