shouted to him before I
reached him:
"Hello! did you see a boat--a house, I mean,--floating up the river?"
"A boat-house?" asked the man.
"No, a house-boat," I gasped.
"Didn't see nuthin' like it," said the man, and he passed on, to his
wife and home, no doubt. But me! Oh, where was my wife and my home?
I met several people, but none of them had seen a fugitive canal-boat.
How many thoughts came into my brain as I ran along that river road! If
that wretched boarder had not taken the rudder for an ironing table he
might have steered in shore! Again and again I confounded--as far as
mental ejaculations could do it--his suggestions.
I was rapidly becoming frantic when I met a person who hailed me.
"Hello!" he said, "are you after a canal-boat adrift?"
"Yes," I panted.
"I thought you was," he said. "You looked that way. Well, I can tell you
where she is. She's stuck fast in the reeds at the lower end o' Peter's
Pint."
"Where's that?" said I.
"Oh, it's about a mile furder up. I seed her a-driftin' up with the
tide--big flood tide, to-day--and I thought I'd see somebody after her,
afore long. Anything aboard?"
Anything!
I could not answer the man. Anything, indeed! I hurried on up the river
without a word. Was the boat a wreck? I scarcely dared to think of it. I
scarcely dared to think at all.
The man called after me and I stopped. I could but stop, no matter what
I might hear.
"Hello, mister," he said, "got any tobacco?"
I walked up to him. I took hold of him by the lapel of his coat. It was
a dirty lapel, as I remember even now, but I didn't mind that.
"Look here," said I. "Tell me the truth, I can bear it. Was that vessel
wrecked?"
The man looked at me a little queerly. I could not exactly interpret his
expression.
"You're sure you kin bear it?" said he.
"Yes," said I, my hand trembling as I held his coat.
"Well, then," said he, "it's mor'n I kin," and he jerked his coat out of
my hand, and sprang away. When he reached the other side of the road, he
turned and shouted at me, as though I had been deaf.
"Do you know what I think?" he yelled. "I think you're a darned
lunatic," and with that he went his way.
I hastened on to Peter's Point. Long before I reached it, I saw the
boat.
It was apparently deserted. But still I pressed on. I must know the
worst. When I reached the Point, I found that the boat had run aground,
with her head in among the long reeds and mud, and
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