They were to be towed, it appeared, as far as the beginning of the Wey navigation, so Felix's stable duties would not yet begin. The son-in-law, whose name was Doggett, took the tiller during the critical night hours. Felix went to see how fared his charge. The hay was clean, warm, and fragrant, and she, worn out with misery, relieved at their escape, bemused by her first taste of stimulant, sank off to sleep in a few minutes, and left the young man free to go aft, and take lessons in steering a barge, which is an art not to be acquired in five minutes, even by one who has stroked his College eight. The waters of the dirty river, slapped and churned by the passage of the tug, bumped and billowed in light and darkness. The yellow, sickly lights of the shore mingled with the riding lights of the craft around, until the young man's brain reeled. The night was cold, and he was dog tired. His head sank from time to time on his chest. At last Doggett seized him by the arm and shook him. "Go, sleep it out," he bawled, as if Felix, like himself, was hard of hearing. "I'll call yer when I want yer." Dizzily the would-be suicide stumbled into the little dingy cabin, found the thing that purported to be a bed, and in half a minute was sound asleep, deaf even to the torrent of language which the appearance of the tug and her barges seemed to provoke all along the great watery highway. CHAPTER IV UP RIVER Bordered by cities, and hoarse With a thousand cries, is its stream. And we on its breast, our minds Are confused as the cries which we hear, Changing and shot as the sights that we see. --MATTHEW ARNOLD. The dawn was misty gray and the cold piercing when Doggett awoke his second-in-command. The barge flotilla was just passing under Hammersmith Bridge. Felix, dazed with sleep, arose, and, as directed, lit a paraffin stove, boiled a kettle, and made tea. Then he frizzled bacon in a frying-pan, an accomplishment which was by no means new to him. He took his own breakfast, a few hurried mouthfuls, and then, carrying his mug and plate, went to relieve his master at the tiller. As he passed, he stooped to where Rona slept, motionless in her nest of hay. She was lying quite still, her lashes, with a bronze luster on their blackness, penciled sharply upon her cheek, flushed with warm slumber. The rosy tint made the face appear far more pleasing than it had seemed last night. She panted now and then, as if it hurt her to draw breath. But, as far as he could tell, she was not feverish.