The Ferryman of Brill, and Other Stories

by William Henry Giles Kingston

Fanny Aveling had, the year before, come out from England, and not long after her arrival Frank Carlton began to reflect that his house would be in a far better condition than it was at the present, if he could place a mistress at its head. He had had no reason to suppose that Miss Aveling was indifferent towards him, until the day on which the conversation which has been described took place. He was still, it must be owned, somewhat in doubt about the matter. He did not suppose that she cared for anybody else; indeed he knew of no visitor at the house likely to have won her affections. He therefore, as most men would have done under similar circumstances, lived on in the hope of ultimately winning her. Still, week after week passed, and though he made frequent visits to Captain Barton’s, Miss Aveling’s manner towards him remained totally unchanged. At length, sanguine as he was, he began to fear that he had misplaced his affections. He also grew distant in his manner towards her, and he seldom paid a visit to the house of his former friends.

Mrs Barton could not but suspect the cause, for she, it must be owned, was favourable to Frank Carlton, and thought that her sister could not make a more desirable match.

“What more can you require in a man than Frank possesses, Fanny?” she said one day to her sister.

“Yes,” observed Fanny, “he is honest, and he does not smoke, and he does not drink, and he does not use bad language, that I know of, and he’s very respectable; in fact, in my opinion, he is made up of negatives.”

“Oh, you foolish girl!” exclaimed Mrs Barton; “you want him to threaten to leave you for ever, or to jump down the Falls, or to commit some other outrageous act, and then perhaps your feelings would be worked up, and you would be ready to entreat him to remain and be yours.”

“No, I tell you I don’t care for him, that I know of, and don’t know that I ever shall,” answered Fanny, petulantly. “I have made up my mind, when he next comes, to let him understand that very clearly.”

As it happened, Frank paid another visit the following day to the Bartons. Fanny certainly did contrive to show him that there were no hopes of her becoming his wife.

He would make a tour through the country, visit Toronto, Montreal, and perhaps go down to Quebec. Or he would make a trip to the Far West, across Lake Superior to the Red River Settlement, and visit the small band of his countrymen collected there. At first he thought he would start at once, and not pay a farewell visit to the Bartons.

It happened that Mrs Barton, her sister, and her two little boys, Frank’s favourites, Ernest and Harry, were strolling about by the bank of the river. They had gone somewhere down in the direction of the rapids, when Fanny exclaimed that the scenery, already tinged by the bright hue of autumn, was so beautiful that she must stop and make a sketch.

The two sisters sat down on the bank, while Fanny, with the hand of an artist, rapidly sketched the scene. She had to employ the most gorgeous colours which her colour-box could supply, and even then could scarcely give sufficient brightness to the landscape. While she was sketching, the little boys ran along the bank, where, moored to the shore, they found a boat, and very naturally got into it. Their mother and aunt did not observe them. They got out the oars, and began to make believe that they were rowing. Now they pulled on one side and then on the other. Harry, the youngest, tired of rowing, put in the oar, and began to play with the “painter.” The boat had been carelessly secured, and by some means or other he let the painter slip. Ernest, in the meantime, who was still rowing, turned the boat round, and before the boys knew what was happening, they were drifting from the shore. Already, before they saw their danger, they were too far off to regain the bank. Often they had been told of the fearful risk of being carried off by the current. They screamed with fear. Their cries aroused their mother and aunt. Several people also had been attracted by them from a neighbouring farm, but no boat was to be seen at hand in which they could be followed. Already the boat was moving down the current. It was still some distance from the rapids: but, unless stopped in its course, it must eventually reach them.