A Country Girl. Nancy Carson

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      ‘Oh, I was just the same when I was his age,’ Murdoch replied. ‘It’s to be expected, ha?’

      The following Sunday, Algie decided to put his new bike, his pride and joy, through its paces along the towpath. The weather remained settled and it was a lovely warm, sunny day. He cycled first towards Wordsley, waving to the boatmen he knew and their wives, whose narrowboats he passed. Since it was the Sabbath many were moored up, generally close to a public house, their horses left to graze the tufts of grass that lined the canal. Algie had had no more trouble with his chain coming off since he had tightened it by moving the rear wheel back sufficiently in its forks. He cycled confidently now, in the certain knowledge that it would not come adrift again.

      When he reached the Red House Glassworks with its huge brick cone towering over everything, he reckoned he’d gone far enough in that direction. He was keen to try the uphill ride back. The towpath followed the topography of the canal so it was flat for the most part, the ascent appearing in stages at the ten locks on that stretch of the canal, and the humpback bridges that spanned them. His intention was to cycle in the other direction as far as the Nine Locks at the area known as the Delph, about a mile as the crow flies, but nearly two miles along the meandering canal. He hoped he might espy the Binghams. But long before he reached the Nine Locks, he spotted a pair of narrowboats lying low and heavy in the water, plying the bend in the canal at the Victoria Firebrick Works. Thirty yards in front, a piebald horse was hauling them, its long face in a nose-tin. The stocky figure of Seth Bingham was leading it.

      Marigold! Algie’s heart skipped a beat. He smiled to himself and raced towards them. He bid Seth good day as he whizzed past, looking for Marigold, and saw her bending down at the tiller of the butty, the Odyssey. She was wearing a sunbonnet and failed to see him at first. It took a shout to draw her attention, whereupon she stood up and looked about enquiringly. When she eventually spotted him she smiled and waved.

      ‘How do, Marigold,’ Algie called, an amiable grin on his handsome face. He turned around and rode alongside her, matching the sedate pace of the narrowboat she was steering.

      ‘Hello, Algie. You got your bike then.’

      ‘What d’you think of it?’

      ‘It looks nice. You ride it well.’

      Mrs Bingham, at the tiller of the Sultan, the horse boat, turned around when she heard her daughter calling to Algie, and smiled to herself, not averse to the romance she perceived blossoming between them. This Algie Stokes was at least likeable, unlike that ne’er-do-well she’d taken to in Kidderminster.

      ‘I’m getting used to it now, Marigold.’

      ‘How long you had it?’

      ‘A couple of weeks. Hey, I ain’t seen you for ages. Ain’t you been down this cut since last time I saw you?’

      ‘No,’ she called. ‘We’ve been up again’ Cheshire and back a few times, though, and to Birnigum.’

      ‘So you’re on your way to Kiddy again?’

      Marigold nodded coyly, aware of all it implied.

      ‘So you’ll be doing a spot o’ courting tomorrow night then?’

      She shrugged and felt herself blush.

      ‘Are you mooring up by the Bottle and Glass?’ he asked.

      ‘I reckon so. Me dad likes the beer there.’

      ‘Yes, you said. So d’you fancy coming a walk with me again when you’ve had your dinner? It’s a nice day for a walk.’

      ‘If you like,’ she answered, and Algie was encouraged by the spontaneity of her acceptance.

      ‘I’ll give you a ride on the crossbar, eh?’

      She shrugged, still smiling with pleasure at seeing him. ‘If you like … So how fast can you make the machine go?’

      ‘Here on the flat I can make it go proper quick.’

      ‘Show me, then.’

      The lad that was in the man grinned boyishly at the welcome challenge; at the opportunity to impress. ‘All right. Watch this.’

      He raised himself from the saddle and exerted all the pressure he could muster onto the pedals for a rapid acceleration. Just as he was drawing level with the horse, the chain came off the sprocket and, because of its sudden and unexpected lack of tension, his right leg slipped off the pedal and he banged his crotch again on the crossbar. The instant, unbearable pain caused Algie to wince and he veered straight into the horse, its head still in its nose-tin. Shocked out of its wits, the animal panicked, but it had only one place to go – into the canal, followed at once by Algie and his new bike.

      Animal and lad thrashed about looking very undignified. Algie surfaced with a look of disgruntled surprise on his face. He gasped for air as the chill of the water, coupled with the excruciating agony of testicular pain, robbed him of breath. His normally curly hair was a black, wet mop clinging to his head and he spluttered foul water in indignant astonishment. The poor horse, meanwhile, its eyes white and wild with fright, was drowning in its own nose-tin as it flailed about, desperately trying to regain its feet on the slimy bed of the canal. Seth realised the animal’s plight and at once threw himself down on his belly at the edge of the towpath, reaching out, frantically trying to free the nose-tin from the horse so that it could breathe air without either choking itself with feed, or drowning.

      ‘Hey up!’ he cried, in a panic of concern. ‘Steady on, old lad. Let me get thy nostern off, else you’m a goner.’

      He managed to loosen the strap, which was attached to a metal ring riveted to the nose-tin on the side nearest to him. The horse coughed and spluttered and, in its continuing terror, lost its footing again in the slime.

      The trailing narrowboat, by virtue of the impetus of its sheer uncontrolled weight, was in danger of crushing the horse between it and the canal wall. Seth yelled to Marigold to watch her steering. Suddenly, Marigold’s eyes were filled with apprehension as she immediately understood the danger. She grasped the tiller, holding it with all her strength to alter the course of the heavily loaded craft, to bring it to the bank without maiming the horse. Seth, meanwhile, rushed to his feet and tried shoving the Odyssey away from the horse, mustering all his strength. He succeeded, but stretching too far in his urgency, he, too, dropped into the canal with an unceremonious splash.

      Algie was too concerned with his own predicament to notice the commotion he’d caused. He was submerging himself repeatedly as he tried to locate his new investment, his precious bike, obscured in the murky water. ‘I can’t find me bike,’ he declared in horror. ‘It’ll be ruined. What if the narrowboat’s mangled it as it’s gone over it?’

      ‘Never mind the blasted bike, you daft bugger,’ Seth Bingham rasped angrily, freshly saturated and surfacing behind him next to the increasingly perplexed horse. ‘My hoss is more important than that blasted thing o’ yourn. Mek yourself useful and fetch somebody who can help we get the hoss out the cut.’

      ‘When I’ve found me bike,’ Algie called defiantly. ‘It cost me twelve quid.’

      ‘And a new hoss’ll cost yer a sight more. You barmy bugger, what did you think you was a-doing, eh? Wait till I tell your fairther. Now get out of the cut and help СКАЧАТЬ