ent. The
daylight, after the first shock of finding that the night was really
over, brought some comfort to her foolish heart. She thought that as
Nettie said "no more harm" could come to him, he must be sleeping
somewhere, the foolish fellow. She thought most likely Nettie was right,
and that she had best go to bed to consume the weary time till there
could be something heard of him; and Nettie, of course, would find it
all out.

Such was the arrangement accordingly. Susan covered herself up warm, and
lay thinking all she should say to him when he came home, and how she
certainly never would again let him go out and keep it secret from
Nettie. Nettie, for her part, bathed her hot eyes, put on her bonnet,
and went out, quietly undoing all the bolts and bars, into the chill
morning world, where nobody was yet awake. She was a little uncertain
which way to turn, but noway uncertain of her business. Whether he had
gone into the town, or towards the low quarter by the banks of the
canal, she felt it difficult to conclude. But remembering her own
suggestion that he might have stumbled in the field, and fallen asleep
there, she took her way across the misty grass. It was still spring, and
a little hoar-frost crisped the wintry sod. Everything lay forlorn and
chill under the leaden morning skies--not even an early market-cart
disturbed the echoes. When the cock crew somewhere, it startled Nettie.
She went like a spectre across the misty fields, looking down into the
ditches and all the inequalities of the way. On the other side lay the
canal, not visible, except by the line of road that wound beside it,
from the dead flat around. She bent her steps in that direction,
thinking of a certain mean little tavern which, somehow, when she saw
it, she had associated with Fred--a place where the men at the door
looked slovenly and heated, like Fred himself, and lounged with their
hands in their pockets at noon of working-days. Some instinct guided
Nettie there.

But she had no need to go so far. Before she reached that place
the first sounds of life that she had yet heard attracted Nettie's
attention. They came from a boat which lay in the canal, in which the
bargemen seemed preparing to start on their day's journey. Some men were
leisurely leading forward the horses to the towing-path, while two in
the boat were preparing for their start inside. All at once a strange
cry rang into the still, chill air--such a cry as startles all who