rowing?
Can you fancy it? Well, as for me,
I feel the salt wind blowing.
Up, up and down, lazy boat!
On the top of a wave we float;
Down we go with a rush.
Far off I see the strand
Glimmer; our boat we'll push
Ashore on fairyland."

--A. KEARY.

And now it is time to return to the two little travellers.

The big red barge-boat came swinging slowly through the lock as the
children came close to the canal. They were too late to get aboard
there, and they hung back in disappointment and indecision. After
clearing the lock and exchanging a word or two with the woman at the
toll, the bargeman had laid himself down upon a heap of empty sacks, to
take a nap most probably, leaving his boy in charge of the tiller. Soon
bargee was wrapped in slumber, and the boy buried in a penny dreadful.
Darby and Joan did not desire to disturb either of them. They were
anxious above all things to get on board the boat unnoticed; so, after a
hurried consultation carried on in whispers, they agreed that their best
plan would be to walk on to the next stopping-place--a tiny clump of
cottages and a shop or two, called by courtesy a village--and make sure
of embarking there. This hamlet was only about half a mile off. They
could reach it easily before the barge; and keeping well in the shelter
of the fringe of alders, osiers, and reeds that grew thickly in the
marshy ground below the tow-path, lest the man or the lad should look
about and spy them, the children trotted straight along, with their
eager eyes steadfastly fixed upon the far-off hills in front.

Bargee was soon snoring lustily; the boy seemed to find his story
all-absorbing; the old brown horse knew every step of the way, foot for
foot, better than either of them, and required no guiding: consequently
the little ones were in scarcely any danger of detection. Besides, even
if the man or the boy on board the canal-boat had noticed the pair
stealing along behind the bushes, neither would have thought of
challenging their presence or casting upon them more than a passing
glance. They would have simply accepted them for what they appeared to
the casual observer--two cottage children who were either altogether
motherless or sadly neglected--and then forgotten all about them. For,
to be quite candid, they looked far from respectable--entirely unlike
the trim, spotless little persons whom Perry had dressed with such care
and precision only so