excuse for aimless snuffling, whining and barking. And Mrs. Mortimer
looked on from the well by the cabin door, saucepan in hand, prepared to
cook at the shortest notice. It was fascinating to see her, at first in
the almost brimming lock, majestically erect (she was a regal figure)
challenging the horizon with a gaze at once proud, prescient of
martyrdom, and prepared; and then, as Sam opened the sluices, to watch
her descend, inch by inch, into the dark lock-chamber. Each time this
happened Mr. Mortimer exhorted her--"Courage, my heart's best!"--and she
made answer each time, "Nay, Stanislas, I have no terrors."

Mr. Mortimer, at the fifth lock, left Old Jubilee and walked around to
remark to Tilda that on the boards some such apparatus--"if it could be
contrived at moderate expense"--would be remarkably effective in the
drowning scene of _The Colleen Bawn_; or, in the legitimate drama, for
the descent of Faustus into hell; "or, by means of a gauze transparency,
the death of Ophelia might be indicated. I mention Ophelia because it
was in that part my Arabella won what--if the expression may be used
without impropriety--I will term her spurs. I am given to understand,
however," added Mr. Mortimer, "that the apparatus requires a
considerable reservoir, and a reservoir of any size is only compatible
with fixity of tenure. An Ishmael--a wanderer upon the face of the
earth--buffeted this way and that by the chill blast of man's
ingratitude, more keenly toothed (as our divine Shakespeare observed)
than winter's actual storm--but this by the way; it is not mine to
anticipate more stable fortune, but rather to say with Lear--"

"'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!'"

"I merely drop the suggestion--and I pass on."

He folded his arms and passed on. That is to say, he strode off in a
hurry at a summons from Sam to stand by and pole the boat clear as the
lower lock-gates were opened.

Somehow Tilda divined that Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer were in high spirits
this morning, and it was with reasonable confidence that, after they had
moored below locks and breakfasted, she sought Sam--who had withdrawn to
the bows with his account book--and inquired how the performance had
gone off.

"There was a small misunderstandin' at the close," he answered, looking
up and pausing to moisten the lead of his pencil, "owin' to what the
bills said about carriages at ten-thirty. Which the people at Tizzer's
Green took it that carriages