Part 16 (1/2)

he added, looking up as one who would stand no contradiction, ”is the 'alf of two-an'-six . . . You'll excuse me, missy, but business first an' pleasure afterwards. We're stoppin' here for the day.”

”For the day?” echoed Tilda, with a dismayed look astern. ”An' we've on'y come this far!”

”Pretty good goin', _I_ should call it,” Mr. Bossom a.s.sured her cheerfully. ”Six locks we've pa.s.sed while you was asleep, not countin'

the stop-lock. But maybe you 're not used to travel by ca.n.a.l?”

”I thank the Lord, no; or I'd never 'ave put Mr. 'Ucks up to it.

Why, I'd _walk_ it quicker, crutch an' all.”

”What'd you call a reas'nable price for eggs, now--at this time o'

year?” asked Mr. Bossom, abstractedly sucking the stump of a pencil and frowning at his notebook. But of a sudden her words seemed to strike him, and he looked up round-eyed.

”You ain't tellin' me _you_ put this in 'Ucks's mind?”

”'Course I did,” owned Tilda proudly.

”An' got me sent to Stratford-on-Avon!” Mr. Bossom added. ”Me that stood your friend when _you_ was in a tight place!”

”No, I didn'. It was 'Ucks that mentioned Stratford--said you'd find a cargo of beer there, which sounded all right: an' Mortimer jumped at it soon as ever he 'eard the name. Mortimer said it was the dream of his youth an' the perspiration of his something else--I can't tell the ezact words; but when he talked like that, how was I to guess there was anything wrong with the place?”

”There ain't anything wrong wi' the _place_, that I know by,” Mr. Bossom admitted.

”But I remember another thing he said, because it sounded to me even funnier. He said, 'Sweet swan of Avon upon the banks of Thames, that did so please Eliza and our James.' Now what did he mean by that?”

Mr. Bossom considered and shook his head.

”Some bank-'oliday couple, I reckon; friends of his, maybe. But about that swan--Mortimer must 'a-been talkin' through his hat. Why to get to the Thames that bird'd have to go up the Stratford-on-Avon to Kingswood cut, down the Warwick an' Birmingham to Budbrooke--with a trifle o'

twenty-one locks at Hatton to be worked or walked round; cross by the Warwick an' Napton--another twenty-two locks; an' all the way down the Oxford Ca.n.a.l, which from Napton is fifty miles good.”

”She'd be an old bird before she got there, at our pace,” Tilda agreed.

”But, o' course, Mr. Bossom, if we want to get to Stratford quick, an'

you don't, you'll make the pace what you like an' never mind us.”

”Who said I didn' want to get to Stratford?” he asked almost fiercely, and broke off with a groan.

”Oh, it's 'ard!--it's 'ard! . . . And me sittin' here calcilatin' eggs an' milk domestic-like and thinkin' what bliss . . . But you don't understand. O' course you don't. Why should you?”

Tilda placed her hands behind her back, eyed him for half-a-minute, and sagely nodded.

”Well, I never!” she said. ”Oh, my goodness gracious mercy me!”

”I can't think what you 're referrin' to,” stammered Mr. Bossom.

”So we're in love, are we?”

He cast a guilty look around.

”There's Mortimer, comin' down the path, an' only two fields away.”

”And it's a long story, is it? Well, I'll let you off this time,” said Tilda. ”But listen to this, an' don't you fergit it. If along o' your dawdlin' they lay hands on Arthur Miles here, I'll never fergive you-- no, never.”