Part 7 (1/2)

”You don't deliver another shovelful till we're out o' this,” said Tilda positively, stamping the cover in place and standing upon it for safety.

”What's more, if anyone comes an' arsks a question, you ha'n't seen us.”

”Neither fur nor feather of ye,” said the young man, and grinned.

She cast a look at the boy; another up and down the towing-path.

”Got such a thing as a cake o' soap hereabouts? You wouldn', I suppose--” and here she sighed impatiently.

”I 'ave, though. Always keeps a bit in my trouser pocket.” He produced it with pride.

Said Tilda, ”I don't know yername, but you're more like a Garden Angel than any I've met yet in your walk o' life. Hand it over, an' keep a look-out while I wash this child's face. I _can't_ take 'im through the streets in this state.” She turned upon the boy. ”Here, you just kneel down--so--with your face over the water, an' as near as you can manage.”

He obeyed in silence. He was still trembling. ”That's right, on'y take care you don't overbalance.” She knelt beside him, dipped both hands in the water, and began to work the soap into a lather. ”What's the 'andiest way to the Good Samaritan?” she asked, speaking over her shoulder.

”Meanin' the 'orspital?”

”Yes.” She took the boy's pa.s.sive face between her hands and soaped it briskly. ”The 'andiest way, _an'_ the quietest, for choice.”

”The 'andiest way,” said the young coalheaver, after considering for half a minute, ”an' the quietest, is for me to cast off the bow-straps here an' let her drop across stream. You can nip up through the garden yonder--it don't belong to n.o.body just now. That'll bring you out into a place called Pollard's Row, an' you turn straight off on your right.

First turnin' opposite on the right by the 'Royal Oak,' which is a public-'ouse, second turnin' to the left after that, an' you're in Upper Town Street, an' from there to the Good Samaritan it's no more 'n a stone's throw.”

Tilda was silent for a few moments whilst she fixed these directions in her mind.

”It do seem,” she said graciously while she dried the boy's face with the skirt of her frock, ”like as if you 'd dropped 'ere from 'eaven.

What we should a-done without you, I can't think.”

”You'd best thank that dog o' your'n.” The young man bent to cast off his rope. ”He broke away from me once, an' I made sure I'd lost 'im.

But by-an'-by back he came like a mad thing, an' no need to tell me you was inside there. He was neither to hold nor to bind, an' I do believe if he hadn't thought o' the manhole he'd 'a-broke the wall down, or elst his 'eart.”

”When I tell you 'e got me in as well as out--But, good sake, I musn'

stand 'ere talkin'! Gimme my crutch, an' shove us across, that's a dear man.”

She pushed the boy before her on to the barge. 'Dolph sprang on board at their heels, and the young coalheaver thrust the bows across with his pole. The ca.n.a.l measured but seventeen or eighteen feet from brink to brink, and consequently the boat, which was seventy feet long at least, fell across at a long angle. The garden on the opposite sh.o.r.e was unfenced, or rather, its rotten palings had collapsed with time and the pressure of a rank growth of elder bushes.

”So long, an' th' Lord bless yer!”

Tilda took the boy's hand and jumped ash.o.r.e.

”Same to you, an' wis.h.i.+n' you luck!” responded the young coalheaver cheerfully. ”Look 'ere,” he added, ”if you get in trouble along o'

this, I'm willin' to stand in for my share. Sam Bossom's my name-- employ of Hucks, Ca.n.a.l End Basin. If they lag you for this, you just refer 'em to Sam Bossom, employ of Hucks--everyone knows Hucks; an' I'll tell 'em--well, darned if I know what I'll tell 'em, unless that we was all under the influence o' drink.”

”You're a white man,” responded Tilda, ”though you don't look it; but there ain't goin' to be no trouble, not if I can 'elp. If anyone arsks questions, you han't seen us, mind.”

”Fur nor feather of ye,” he repeated. He watched the pair as they dived through the elder bushes; saw them, still hand in hand, take the path on the left side of the garden, where its party hedge could best screen them from the back windows of the Orphanage; and poled back meditatively.

”Got an 'ead on her shoulders, that child!” On their way up the garden Tilda kept silence. She was busy, in fact, with Sam Bossom's complicated itinerary, repeating it over and over to fix it in her mind.

She was fearful, too, lest some inquisitive neighbour, catching sight of them, might stop them and challenge to know their business. The streets once gained, she felt easier--easier indeed with every yard she put between her and that house of horrors. But the streets, too, held their dangers. The bells had rung in the elementary schools; all respectable boys and girls were indoors, deep in the afternoon session, and she had heard of attendance officers, those prowling foes.

At the end of Pollard's Row--a squalid street of tenement houses--she suffered indeed a terrible scare. A benevolent-looking middle-aged lady--a district visitor, in fact--emerging from one of these houses and arrested perhaps at sight of the crutch or of the boy's strange rags, stopped her and asked where she was going.