Littlebourne Lock Part 9

"Emily," he said, "how could you be so stupid? Don't you know that you must always sit still in a boat?"

"Yes," she answered, half crying; "but you frightened me so about the swans."

"Girls never can take a bit of fun. And if Juliet had not leaned the other way so as to balance you, we might all have been in the water, and the swans would have got you, and you might never have seen Littlebourne Eyot again."

At this Emily cried outright.

Juliet asked Philip what he meant by an eyot. He told her that an island in the Thames is called an _eyot_ or _ait_; and he also said that she had more sense than most girls, and if she liked he would teach her how to row, which some women can do almost as well as men.

"I should think I could do it without being taught," said Juliet.

"No, you could not. You would catch crabs, and you would feather in the air, and you would run into the banks, and go aground on the shallows, and be carried over the weirs."

"I should not care," said Juliet. "I could eat the crabs, and make a pillow of the feathers; I am not afraid."

"You have a good deal of pluck for a girl," said Philip; "but don't you get playing with boats, or you will come to grief."

"I sha'n't ask _your_ leave," said Juliet.

"I sha'n't give it," replied Philip with a rough laugh.

And Juliet spoke no more, but knitted her brows fiercely.

When the children landed at the lock, and told of the adventure with the swans, Mrs. Rowles was profuse with praise of Juliet's presence of mind. In fact she was almost too profuse, and wishing to encourage her niece ran the risk of making her conceited. Juliet's brows grew smooth, her eyes brightened, her head rose higher.

"Oh, well," she said aside to Emily, "it is not so difficult to manage a boat if you have your wits about you. When people give way and lose their wits, then it is dangerous, if you like."

Which remarks seemed to Emily extremely sensible, but to Philip, who overheard them, extremely foolish.

During the next week Mrs. Rowles felt that Juliet was improving in temper and conduct; praise was doing the child good she thought. She did not know that it was also doing her harm.

One day a letter and a parcel came for Juliet. The letter was from her mother, full of good news. Mr. Mitch.e.l.l had gone to work again; she had herself made a summer mantle for one of Miss Sutton's friends, and had been paid four and sixpence for it. Albert had got a rise of a shilling a-week; and baby's cheeks were getting to have quite a colour. Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l was sure that Juliet was very good and very happy, and making herself useful to her aunt and uncle. And when they could spare her to come back to London she must get a little place, and earn her own living like a woman. If Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l had any fresh troubles since Juliet left home, she did not mention them in her letter.

Then the parcel--ah! that came from Miss Sutton and some of her friends at the West-end. It contained nice articles of clothing. A pair of strong boots, two pink cotton pinafores, some few other things, and a clean, large-print prayerbook. Juliet's face grew so happy over her letter and her presents that, to Mrs. Rowles surprise, it became quite pretty. This was the first time that she had perceived how the girl's ill-tempered countenance spoilt her really good features.

"Is she like her father or her mother?" Mr. Rowles inquired of his wife. "But there! she can't be like her father--a pasty-faced, drowsy fellow, always sleeping in the daytime, and never getting a bit of sunshine to freshen him up. Not like some of them, camping out and doing their cooking in the open air, and getting burnt as black as gipsies. There they are--at it again!"

And he went out to the lock.

There were two boats waiting to go down. The people in one of them were quite unknown to Rowles, but in the second was that middle-aged man who was so determined to learn to row.

"How are you getting on, sir?" asked Rowles. "Easier work now, ain't it?"

The man seemed unwilling to reply. He had an oar, and with him was a youth in a suit of flannels pulling the other oar, while on the seat sat an elderly gentleman steering.

"Did you find it very hard at first?" said the lad to his colleague.

"Yes, I did, Mr. Leonard; and I don't find it any too easy now."

The old gentleman laughed. "Well, Roberts, take it coolly going down stream, and reserve your energies for coming up. I say, lock-keeper, I am told that you let lodgings; have you any rooms vacant?"

"My missus has two rooms, sir," replied Rowles, as he leaned on the great white wooden handle while the lock was emptying through the sluices of the lower gates. "There is a gentleman who generally comes in August, being an upper-cla.s.s lawyer and can't leave his work till the best of the summer is over, just like printers who lie in bed all day and work all night."

"Don't say a word against printers," said the old gentleman laughing.

"That won't do, will it Leonard?"

"No, father," the youth replied.

"So, as I was saying," Rowles went on, "he comes here every August and September, and letters come by the bushel with Q.C. on them; and young Walker--the postman, you know--would just as soon he staid in London.

But before August and after September Mrs. Rowles has a tidy little sitting-room and bed-room, if so be as you know anyone would be likely to take them."

"I was only thinking," said the gentleman, "that the hotel is rather too expensive--"

By this time the boat had floated near to the lower gates.

"Hold her up! hold her up!" cried Rowles, "or I can't open the gates.

Not you, sir," he added to the stranger who was sculling the other boat; "but you, I mean, Mr. Robert."

For Rowles had caught the name of the servant who was so persevering on the river.

"All right," returned Roberts; "give Mr. Burnet the ticket, please."

Rowles stooped down and gave the old gentleman the ticket for the lock, and then the two boats pa.s.sed out into the open stream. The lock-keeper went indoors to ask if dinner was ready.

"Quite ready," was Mrs. Rowles's cheerful reply. "Call the children in, will you, Ned?"

He went out by the backdoor into the garden, and saw how the sky was clouding up from the south-west. "Rain coming; bring on the scarlet-runners and the marrows. Phil-lip! Emil-ly! Jule-liet! Come in to dinner."

Then Philip appeared, hot and tired from digging; and Emily came with some needlework at which she had been st.i.tching in the intervals of watching her brother. The holidays had begun, and they were thoroughly enjoyed by these children.

"And where is Juliet?"

"I don't know," answered Emily.

"Well, you must bring her in. Mother says dinner is quite ready."

"I think she must be in our bed-room," and Emily went upstairs to seek her cousin, and to wash her own dusty little hands.

But Juliet was not in the attic.

"Then she must have gone into the lodgers' rooms," said Mrs. Rowles.

But there was no sign of her in those shut-up rooms; no sign of her anywhere in the house, nor in the garden, nor on the eyot at all, nor on the towing-path as far as could be seen.

"What can have become of her?"