The Story of Antony Grace Part 16

"Is your name Jack?" I said, as I descended, and we trudged on together slowly beside the horses, each of which was now furnished with a tin bucket hung from the top of its head, and containing some beans and chaff.

"Yes; what's yourn?"

"Antony."

"Ho!"

There was silence after this, for we came up to another lock, close by which was a little public-house, where Jack was sent to get a stone bottle filled with beer, and up to whose door he summoned me, and we partook of our half-pint of cider, Jack proving most honourable as to his ideas of half.

Then the beer having been pa.s.sed on board, Jack's mother and father taking not the slightest notice of me, the barge was pa.s.sed through the lock, and Jack beckoned and waved his hand.

"You give me the twopence, and I'll buy," he said. "If we ask Mother Burke for twopen'orth all at once she won't give us more than she would for a penny. Stop a moment," he said, "you only give me a penny, and we'll keep t'other for to-morrow."

I handed a penny to him, and we went into the lock cottage, in whose lattice window were displayed two bottles of ginger-beer, a couple of gla.s.ses of sugar-sticks, and a pile of apples.

Our penny in that out-of-the-way place bought us a dozen good apples, and these we munched behind the horses as we trudged on slowly, mile after mile.

I did not feel tired now, and we boys found so much to talk about that the time went rapidly by. Jack's father and mother did not trouble themselves about my being there, but towards six o'clock handed the boy out his tea in a bottle, whose neck stuck out of the basket that had held his dinner, and in which were some half a dozen slices of bread and b.u.t.ter.

"'Tain't full," said Jack, holding the bottle up to the light; "she might ha' filled it. There is more brem-b.u.t.ter. Never mind, I'll fill it up with water. You won't mind?"

"No," I said; but as a lock was then coming in sight, and a decent-looking village, an idea occurred to me. "Let's buy a pen'orth of milk and put to it," I said.

Jack's eyes sparkled, and hanging the basket _pro tem._ on the hames, he cracked his whip, and we proceeded a little more quickly towards the lock, where I bought a twopenny loaf and some milk for our tea. I say _ours_, for Jack literally shared his with me.

"Where are you going to sleep?" said Jack to me at last, as the evening mists were beginning to rise on the meadows.

"I don't know," I said rather dolefully, for the idea had not occurred to me before.

"Come and bunk along o' me."

"Where?" I asked.

"Under the tarpaulin in front o' the barge," he said; "I allus sleeps there now, cos father says my legs gets in the way in the cabin."

"But would your father mind?"

"Not he. He'll go ash.o.r.e as soon as we make fast for the night and lets the horses loose to feed. He wouldn't mind."

And so it turned out, for the barge was made fast to a couple of stout posts in a wider part of the ca.n.a.l, close to a lock where there was a public-house. The horses were turned out to graze on the thick gra.s.s beside the tow-path, and after a little hesitation I took my bundle and shoes and crept in beneath a tarpaulin raised up in the middle to make quite a tent, which Jack had contrived in the fore port of the barge.

"Ain't it jolly and snug?" he cried.

"Ye-es," I replied.

"On'y it won't do to stop in when the sun gets on it, 'cos it's so hot and sticky. I like it. Feyther can't kick you here."

This was a revelation. I had been thinking Jack's life must be one of perfect bliss.

"Does your father kick you, then?"

"Not now. He used to when he came home after being to the public, when he was cross; but he didn't mean nothing. Feyther's werry fond o' me.

I wouldn't go back to sleep in the cabin now for no money."

Jack's conversation suddenly stopped, and I knew by his hard breathing that he was asleep: but I lay awake for some time, peering out through a little hole left by the tarpaulin folds at the stars, thinking of Mr Blakeford and his pursuit; of what Mary would say when she read my letter; and from time to time I changed the position of my bundle, to try and turn it into a comfortable pillow; but, try how I would, it seemed as if the heel of one or other of my shoes insisted upon getting under my ear, and I dropped asleep at last, dreaming that they were walking all over my head.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

MY VAGABOND LIFE COMES TO AN END.

Somehow or other that idea about my boots being in antagonism to me seemed to pervade the whole of my slumbers till morning, when one of them, I fancied, had turned terribly vicious, and was kicking me hard in the side.

I could not move, and the kicking seemed to go on, till a more vigorous blow than before roused me to consciousness; but still for a few moments I could not make out where I was, only that it was very dark and stuffy, and that. I felt stiff and sore.

Just then a gruff voice awoke my mind as well as my body, and I found that some one was administering heavy pokes through the tarpaulin with what seemed to be a piece of wood.

"All right, feyther," cried Jack just then; and as we scrambled out from beneath the tent I found it was grey dawn, that a heavy mist hung over the river, and that Jack's father had been poking at the tarpaulin with the end of a hitcher, the long iron-shod pole used in navigating the barge.

"Going to lie abed all day?" he growled. "Git them horses to."

"Come along, matey; never mind your boots," cried Jack, and he leaped ash.o.r.e.

I did not like leaving my bundle behind, but I felt bound to help, and following Jack's example, I helped him to catch the horses, which were soon attached to the tow-line thrown ash.o.r.e by the bargeman, who cast loose the mooring ropes, and with the stars still twinkling above our heads we were once more on our way, Jack walking beside the horse and I barefooted beside him.

My feet did not pain me now, but I felt that to replace my boots would be to chafe them again, so I contented myself with letting them ride, while for the present I made my way afoot.

My proceedings as we went along seemed to greatly interest Jack, who stared hard as he saw me stoop down and wash my face and hands at a convenient place in the river, for a shake and a rub of his curly head seemed to const.i.tute the whole of his toilet. My hair I smoothed as I walked by his side, while he looked contemptuously at my little pocket-comb.

"That wouldn't go through my hair," he said at last. Then in the same breath, "Old woman's up."

I turned to see how he knew it, expecting his mother to be on the little deck: but the only thing visible besides Jack's father was a little curl of smoke from the iron chimney in front of the rudder.

"That means brakfa.s.s," said Jack, grinning; "don't you want yourn?"

I said I did, and asked how soon we should get to a lock where I could buy some bread and milk.

"Don't you waste your money on bread and milk," said my companion, "there'll be lots o' brakfa.s.s for both on us. You wait till we get farther on and we can get some apples and a bottle of ginger-beer."

It seemed so fair an arrangement that when the shrill voice summoned Jack to fetch his breakfast I shared it with him, and so I did his dinner and tea, while we afterwards regaled ourselves with fruit, and sweets, and cider, or ginger-beer.

This went on day after day, for though the pace was slow I found that I could not have got on faster. Besides which, I had endless rides, Jack's proceedings with me never once seeming to awaken either interest or excitement on the part of his parents. In fact, Jack's father seemed to occupy the whole of his time in leaning upon the tiller and smoking, with the very rare exceptions that he might occasionally make use of the hitcher in rounding some corner. As for the pa.s.sing of other barges, the men upon them seemed to do the greater part of the necessary work in lifting tow-ropes. At the locks, too, he would stolidly stare at Jack and me as we turned the handles with the lock-keeper, and then perhaps grunt approval.

Jack's mother appeared to spend all her time in cooking and other domestic arrangements, for she never showed herself on deck except to announce the readiness of a meal by a shrill shout for her boy, rarely speaking a word to him at such times as he took his food from her hands.

Life on the river seemed to breed taciturnity, and though we boys generally had something to say, for the most part we jogged on silently with the horses, who hung their heads and kept on their course as if half asleep.

To me it was a dreamy time of constant journeying by the shining river; for at last we pa.s.sed through a lock into the Isis, and then continued our way on and on through locks innumerable till we pa.s.sed out again into what I suppose must have been the Grand Junction or Regent's Ca.n.a.l--to this day I am not sure which. The hundred miles or so I was to have walked to London must have been more than doubled by the turnings and doublings of the river; but I was never tired, and Jack never wearied of my society. There was always something to see in the ever-changing scenery, and sometimes, if we came to a stoppage early in the evening, Jack brought out a rough line and a willow wand, and we fished for perch by some rushing weir.