were coming up, and
required that the lock should be opened for them.

Nothing gave Philip and Emily more pleasure than to help their father
open the lock-gates. They liked going to school, and they liked
playing with their friends, but opening the lock-gates, and then
watching them as they closed, was more delightful than any other kind
of work or play.

Philip knew that a river on which large boats and barges went to and
fro must be kept up by locks, or it would run away so fast that it
would become too shallow for any but small boats. Littlebourne lock is
built from one bank of the river to an island in it. There are great
wooden gates, opened by great wooden handles; but to explain how a
lock is made and worked would be difficult, though it is easily
understood when examined. Philip and Emily had lived nearly all their
lives in Littlebourne lock-house, and they knew more about boating and
such matters than old men and women who live all their lives in
London.

The two little steamers came into the lock as soon as Rowles, assisted
by his children, opened the lower gate. The men on them talked to
Rowles while the lock was being filled by the water, which came
through the sluices in the upper gate.

Philip listened to this talk; but Emily went up to the other gate. Her
father and brother did not notice what she was doing. They came
presently and opened the upper gates, talking all the time to the men
on the launches. Then they heard cries.

"Look out! take care! keep in!"

Emily's voice sounded shrill and terrified.

"This side! this side!" she was crying wildly; and she jumped about on
the bank of the island as if frightened at something in the water.

Rowles ran to the place. The first launch was just coming out of the
lock, closely followed by the other. Across the narrow piece of water
just outside the lock was a rowing boat. In it was one man. He looked
scared, for the nose of his boat was stuck in the bank of the island,
and the stern had swung round almost to the opposite bank. The man was
standing up with a scull in his hands, poking at the bank near the
bows; and at every poke his boat went further across the narrow
stream, and was in imminent danger of being cut in two or swamped, or
in some way destroyed by the foremost launch.

"Ah, they are at it again!" cried Rowles; "these cockney boatmen, how
they do try to drown themselves! Hold hard!" he shouted to the
engineer of the launch.

And the en