Long before the shades of the first evening
had fallen upon our journey, both the
captain and the straw-haired young man, had
thoroughly settled that Cuddy was my
favourite, cherished, and faithful body
servant, and he was accordingly addressed,
after this, by the whole of the crew by
the familiar title of William. To add to the
mystery of our presence, a French classic
belonging to Cuddy, was found upon the
deck, and handed by the captain to the
straw-coloured young man (the only one
amongst the crew who could read) to decipher.
Of course he failed to make anything of it,
although we had not the pleasure of witnessing
his attempt, and the book was placed
carefully again upon the spot where it was
found. Although I had heard the most
wonderful distortion of language coming from
the lips of the captain, such as saying, "useful
matches," under the notion that he was
calling for lucifers; and, although I felt
certain that any conversation with Cuddy, within
hearing of our commander was strictly
private, incomprehensible, and confidential
when carried on in words of two or more
syllables, I could not resist the unamiable
desire of accusing Captain Randle of a secret
indulgence in the literary riddle belonging to
my friend.

"Noa, Must'r Olly," he said, in a somewhat
melancholy tone, slowly shaking his
head (he called me Must'r Olly, although it
bore only the faintest resemblance to my
name, from the same cause that made him
turn lucifer into useful). "Noa, I bean't a
scollard; an' if I was, I couldn't read that!"

"Why not?" I inquired.

"Why?" he replied, with a simple smile
of wonder, slightly raising his voice, and
pointing to his straw-haired son; "he can't
make onythin' of that, an' he can read a'most
onythin! You see, Must'r Olly," continued
the old man, following out a train of reflection
he had fallen into; "I'm a Coompany's man,
an' I can't be messed about. I've been on
these canals now, man an' boy, nigh fifty year,
most o' that time wi' Mussrs. Pickford, an'
I've lived long enough to know that England
is noa place for a doonce."

"Well, but," interposed Cuddy, with a
good-humoured intention, "you've worked
hard, have done your duty, and are not very
badly off, after all."

"Noa, William," returned Captain Randle,
addressing himself to Cuddy. "Noa, I'm
not; an' if I left the boat to-morrow, I
shouldn't starve, for I've managed to put by
a pund or two in my time."

This little property, to which the old man
alluded, was, perhaps, about, two hundred
pounds; and, like all persons who have saved
money under difficult circumstances, he was
proud of his small possessions, and hinted at
them on many occasions during the voyage.

"Noa; "he continued, still running, with
an amiable, and a characteristic weakness,
upon the same idea; "I be a doonce, an' I
knows it; but, I made my boy larn to read
an' write, an' if I could affoord it, he shouldn't
be 'ere now."

"You haven't lost much, Randle," I said,
to comfort him, "by not knowing how to
read. You're well and hearty, anyhow;
although near sixty."

"Yes, Must'r Olly," he said, "I 'm 'arty,
thank Gawd; I eat an' sleep well, an' I can
wurk well, though I'm goin' a little at the
bottom of my feet."

I was not surprised to hear of a little
tenderness at the sole of the foot, considering
the weight and make of a bargeman's boot,
and his proficiency and frequent practice of
the art of "legging" under tunnels.

"This be a hard life, Must'r Olly,
in winter time," continued the captain, "an'
I'd be well out of it at my age, if I could see
onythin' to do me ony good. If I'd been a
scollard when Mussrs. Pickford broke up
their boat-trade, ten year ago, I might a kep'
on wi' 'em, and done somethin'; but I'm a
Coompany's man, an' can't be messed about;
an' when they wanted to make a porter of
me at the railys, I was obleeged to be off;
an' they sed, 'It's no use: he means boatin',
he does, so give him his crakter, an' let him
go.'"

Captain Randle fully believed that, by
simply writing and reading, he might, at
this moment, have been sitting in the
manager's chair at Messrs. Pickford's offices;
little knowing how very cheap, of late years,
those accomplishments have become in the
labour-market of his country. The tone in
which he spoke of his intellectual deficiencies
was affecting from its simple and honest
depth of feeling; and it stopped any further
attempts, on the part of Cuddy and myself,
to play with this point in the old man's
nature.

Man cannot be fed upon scenery and the
outpourings of character, and in due course
we find it necessary to take another meal.
Dinner it ought to be called, according to the
rotation in which it comes; but the meat-pie
having been devoured (chiefly by Cuddy)
the fifty pounds of beef taken in at London,
and all boiled off at once to ensure its keeping
fresh, not being to our taste, we are
obliged to put up with a substantial tea—
Cuddy officiating in the cabin as boiler of
eggs and preparer of coffee. I go down to
witness this interesting operation, paying my
first visit to the small cabin, and gaining an
opportunity of examining its fittings and
dimensions. The kettle has boiled for some
time, so the fire is low, and the heat is what
the boatmen call moderate—like an oven
about an hour after the bakings have been
withdrawn. There can be no doubt that the
cabin of the Stourport is the smallest place
of its kind in the whole world; yet one half
of it is divided off for the bed, which rests
under a wooden arch at the end of the cabin,