all that
they thought necessary to their work.

George was about to call out and wake them up, but, at that moment, a
bright idea flashed across him, and he didn't. He got the hitcher
instead, and reached over, and drew in the end of the tow-line; and they
made a loop in it, and put it over their mast, and then they tidied up
the sculls, and went and sat down in the stern, and lit their pipes.

And that young man and young woman towed those four hulking chaps and a
heavy boat up to Marlow.

George said he never saw so much thoughtful sadness concentrated into one
glance before, as when, at the lock, that young couple grasped the idea
that, for the last two miles, they had been towing the wrong boat.
George fancied that, if it had not been for the restraining influence of
the sweet woman at his side, the young man might have given way to
violent language.

The maiden was the first to recover from her surprise, and, when she did,
she clasped her hands, and said, wildly:

"Oh, Henry, then _where_ is auntie?"

"Did they ever recover the old lady?" asked Harris.

George replied he did not know.

Another example of the dangerous want of sympathy between tower and towed
was witnessed by George and myself once up near Walton. It was where the
tow-path shelves gently down into the water, and we were camping on the
opposite bank, noticing things in general. By-and-by a small boat came
in sight, towed through the water at a tremendous pace by a powerful
barge horse, on which sat a very small boy. Scattered about the boat, in
dreamy and reposeful attitudes, lay five fellows, the man who was
steering having a particularly restful appearance.

"I should like to see him pull the wrong line," murmured George, as they
passed. And at that precise moment the man did it, and the boat rushed
up the bank with a noise like the ripping up of forty thousand linen
sheets. Two men, a hamper, and three oars immediately left the boat on
the larboard side, and reclined on the bank, and one and a half moments
afterwards, two other men disembarked from the starboard, and sat down
among boat-hooks and sails and carpet-bags and bottles. The last man
went on twenty yards further, and then got out on his head.

This seemed to sort of lighten the boat, and it went on much easier, the
small boy shouting at the top of his voice, and urging his steed into a
gallop. The fellows sat up and stared at one another. It was some
seconds before t