THE LOCK HOUSE.

The mist of a July morning shrouded the river and its banks. It was a soft thin mist, not at all like a winter fog, and through it, and high above it, the sun was shining, and the larks singing; and Edward Rowles, the lock-keeper, knew well that within an hour or two the brightest sunshine would gladden England’s river Thames.

He came out from his house, which was overgrown with honeysuckle and clematis, and he looked up the stream and down the stream, and then at the weir over which the water tumbled and roared; he saw that everything was all right after its night’s rest. So he put his hands in his pockets, and went round to the back of the house to see how his peas and beans were conducting themselves. They were flourishing. Next he looked at some poultry in a wired-off space; they seemed very glad to see him, even the little chickens having good appetites, and being ready for their breakfasts.

After this inspection Edward Rowles went indoors again, and looked at his son Philip, who was still asleep in his little camp-bed in the corner of the sitting-room.

“Get up, lad, get up,” said the father; “don’t be the last.”

Philip opened his eyes and rubbed them, and within a few minutes was washing and dressing.

In the meantime Mrs. Rowles was lighting the fire in the kitchen, filling the kettle with water from the well, getting down bread and butter from a shelf, and preparing everything for the morning meal.

Presently there appeared a little girl, Emily by name, who slept in a tiny attic all by herself, and who was very slow in dressing, and generally late in coming down.

“Come, bustle about, Emily,” said her mother. “Here, this slice of bread is very dry, so toast it, and then it will be extra nice.”

Emily obeyed. Philip got a broom and swept out the kitchen; Mr. Rowles brought in a handful of mustard-and-cress as a relish for bread-and-butter. And soon they were all seated at the table.

“Not a boat in sight,” said Mr. Rowles; “nor yet a punt.”

“It is early yet,” replied his wife; “wait until the first train from London comes in.”

“Like enough there will be folks come by it,” rejoined Rowles; “they must be precious glad to get out of London this hot day.”

“Why must they be glad, father?” asked Philip.

“Because London is awful hot in hot weather; it seems as if it had not got enough air for all the folks to breathe that live in it. Millions of people, Philip. Write down a million on your slate, boy.”

Philip brought his slate and pencil and wrote 1,000,000.

“Write it over again, and twice more. Now that seems a good many, eh? Well, there are more people in London than all those millions on your slate. What do you think of that?”

The boy had no idea at all of what a million of people would look like, nor a million of lemon drops, nor a million of anything. He did not even try to gain an idea on the subject.

“Mother,” said Emily, “does Aunt Mary live in London? And Albert and Juliet and Florry and Neddy and and all the others.”

“Yes, poor things! they live in London.”

“And they don’t like hot days in London?”

“Hot days must be better than cold ones. I say, Rowles,” and his wife turned to him and spoke in a gentler tone, “do you know I have been thinking so much lately about Mary and all of them. It is a long time since we had a letter. I wonder if it is all right with them.”

“As right as usual, I’ll be bound,” said Rowles gruffly.

“I’ve a sort of feeling on me,” Mrs. Rowles pursued, “that they are not doing well. The saying is, that no news is good news; but I’m not so sure of that not always.”

“Mary went her own way,” said the lock-keeper, “and if it turns out the wrong way it is no business of mine. When a woman marries a fine, stuck-up London printer, who works all night on a morning paper and sleeps half the day, what can you expect? Can you expect good health, or good temper, or good looks from a man who turns night into day and day into night?”

“Children, run and give these crumbs and some barley to the chickens. Now, Rowles, you know very well that I never did join you in your dislike to Thomas Mitchell. Printing was his trade, and there must be morning papers I suppose, and I daresay he’d like to work by day and sleep by night if he could. I think your sister Mary made a mistake when she married a Londoner, after being used to the country where you can draw a breath of fresh air. And I’m afraid that Tom’s money can’t be any too much for eight children living, and two put away in the cemetery, pretty dears! And I was just thinking to myself that it would seem friendly-like if I was to journey up to London and see how they are getting on. It is less trouble than writing a letter.”

“It costs more,” said Rowles.

A long, distant whistle was heard.

“There they come!” and Rowles rose from his chair, and took his burly figure out into the garden-plot which lay between the cottage and the lock.

Mrs. Rowles followed him, saying, “There is a train at 10.22; and if I leave the dinner all ready you can boil the potatoes for yourself.”

“What do you want to go for, at all? Women are always gadding about, just to show off their bonnets, or to look at other people’s. Here they come two of them!” he added.

For two steam launches, whistling horribly, were coming up, and required that the lock should be opened for them.

Nothing gave Philip and Emily more pleasure than to help their father open the lock-gates. They liked going to school, and they liked playing with their friends, but opening the lock-gates, and then watching them as they closed, was more delightful than any other kind of work or play.

Philip knew that a river on which large boats and barges went to and fro must be kept up by locks, or it would run away so fast that it would become too shallow for any but small boats. Littlebourne lock is built from one bank of the river to an island in it. There are great wooden gates, opened by great wooden handles; but to explain how a lock is made and worked would be difficult, though it is easily understood when examined. Philip and Emily had lived nearly all their lives in Littlebourne lock-house, and they knew more about boating and such matters than old men and women who live all their lives in London.

The two little steamers came into the lock as soon as Rowles, assisted by his children, opened the lower gate. The men on them talked to Rowles while the lock was being filled by the water, which came through the sluices in the upper gate.

Philip listened to this talk; but Emily went up to the other gate. Her father and brother did not notice what she was doing. They came presently and opened the upper gates, talking all the time to the men on the launches. Then they heard cries.

“Look out! take care! keep in!”

Emily’s voice sounded shrill and terrified.

“This side! this side!” she was crying wildly; and she jumped about on the bank of the island as if frightened at something in the water.

Rowles ran to the place. The first launch was just coming out of the lock, closely followed by the other. Across the narrow piece of water just outside the lock was a rowing boat. In it was one man. He looked scared, for the nose of his boat was stuck in the bank of the island, and the stern had swung round almost to the opposite bank. The man was standing up with a scull in his hands, poking at the bank near the bows; and at every poke his boat went further across the narrow stream, and was in imminent danger of being cut in two or swamped, or in some way destroyed by the foremost launch.

“Ah, they are at it again!” cried Rowles; “these cockney boatmen, how they do try to drown themselves! Hold hard!” he shouted to the engineer of the launch.

And the engineer of that steamer did try to hold hard, but the man behind him did not see what was the matter, or that anything was the matter, and therefore he kept his engines going, and pressed close behind on the foremost launch.

Fortunately Rowles had in his hand a long pole with which to push small boats in and out of the lock. With this he caught the side of the endangered craft, and would have drawn it into safety, but the occupant of it flourished his scull about in so foolish a manner that he hindered what Rowles was trying to do, and all the time which was but a couple of minutes the launches were slowly bearing down upon him.

Philip had seized an oar which was lying by, Emily had caught up a clothes-line; Philip pushed his oar at the man in the boat, Emily threw him the end of her rope. Rowles had at length caught the side of the boat with the hook at the end of his pole, and brought it close to the bank.

The man gave a spring to get out on dry land. Of course his boat went away from him, nearly jerking Rowles into the water. As for the awkward creature himself, he fell on his knees on the plank edging of the bank, and his feet dangled in the stream. The launch went on again, crushing the rudder of the small boat.

It required the help of Rowles and Philip to pull the man up on his feet, and get him to believe that he was safe. He staggered up the bank to the pathway on the top of it, and gasped for breath.

“That that was a narrow shave!” said he.

“Ay, for them that goes out fooling in a white shirt,” said Mr. Rowles.

“It is only my feet that are wet,” remarked the stranger, beginning to recover his colour; “and I did not know there was any harm in a white shirt.”

“No harm in the shirt if the man who wore it knew what he was about. Why, I’ve seen them go out in frock-coats and tall hats and kid gloves. I’ve seen them that did not know bow from stern; and then, when they are drowned, they are quite surprised.”

“I don’t know much about boating,” returned the man; “but my gentleman said he thought I had better practise a bit, because he will want me to row him about of an evening. Well, another time I will keep out of the way of the steam-launches.”

“You had better, sir. And put off your coat, and your waistcoat, and your watch and chain, and rig yourself out in a flannel shirt and a straw hat. And, pray, how are you going to get home?”

At this moment Mrs. Rowles came to the door, shading her eyes with her hand, for the sun was now bright and hot, and calling out “Phil lip! Em ily! time to be off.”

The girl threw down her rope and obeyed her mother’s call, but Philip lingered. He could not make out who and what the stranger might be.

That person said, “Perhaps, Mr. Rowles, you would let your boy come with me just to put me in the right way.”

“No, no; he is going to school. You be off, Phil, before I look at you again.”

So, rather unwillingly, Philip also retreated into the house, from whence he and Emily presently emerged with their books, and disappeared across the fields in the direction of the village, where their company was requested by the schoolmaster and the schoolmistress until four o’clock, with a long interval for dinner and play.

“I would let him go with you if it was not for his schooling,” remarked Mr. Rowles; “but he must waste no time if he wants to get the prize. You won’t get a prize for rowing. Why, some of them that comes here don’t know what you mean by feathering!”

The stranger looked very humble. He was a middle-aged man of ordinary appearance, but extremely neat in his dress. His cloth clothes were all of spotless black, his necktie was black with a small white spot; he showed a good deal of fine shirt-front, and a pair of clean cuffs. Then his hair was carefully cut, and he had trimmed whiskers, but no beard or moustache. His hands were not those of a working-man, nor had they the look of those of a gentleman. Edward Rowles could not make him out.

“I’m sure you are not a boating man,” said he.

“Oh, no! oh, dear no! I never rowed a boat before. Though I have been at sea: I have crossed the Channel with Mr. Burnet. But not rowing myself, of course.”

“Who’s Mr. Burnet?” asked Rowles.

“We are staying at the hotel,” replied the stranger; “and what’s more, I must be getting back, for he likes his breakfast at a quarter-past ten sharp. Can I get back another way? Can’t I go down that river?”

He pointed up the stream which came swirling from the weir.

“No,” said Rowles, “you can’t go up the weir-stream, any more than you could leap a donkey over a turnpike-gate. Get into your boat, and pull yourself quietly up under the left-hand bank.”

“I have no rope to pull it by,” said the stranger meekly.

“They come down here,” remarked Rowles with infinite contempt, and speaking to the river, “and don’t know what you mean by pulling. They think it is the same as towing. If you’d rather tow your boat I will lend you a line, provided that you promise faithfully to return it. It is the missus’s clothes-line. And you will keep her close under the bank of the towing-path, and you will pass under all the other lines which you meet. Do you see?”

“Oh, yes, thank you,” said the stranger, anxious to be off. “My name is Roberts, with Mr. Burnet at the hotel; and you shall have the rope back again.”

“Tie it round the bow thwart, as you have no mast,” said Rowles.

Mr. Roberts stared.

“There, stand aside, I’ll do it for you. They sit on a thwart and don’t know what it is, half of them.”

Grumbling and fumbling, Rowles at length got Roberts across the lock-gates and put the line into his hands, telling him to look out for barges and rapids; and then the stranger set off on his return journey, and Rowles went into his house to tell his wife that he thought they were a stupider lot this summer than ever they had been before.