Presently it stopped again, and the man beckoned to Nell: "You may go
with us if you like," he said. "We're going to the same place."
The child hesitated for one moment. Thinking that the men whom she had
seen with her grandfather might perhaps in their eagerness for the
booty, follow them, and regain their influence over him, and that if
they went on the canal-boat all traces of them must be surely
lost--accepted the offer. Before she had any more time for
consideration, she and her grandfather were on board, gliding smoothly
down the canal, through the bright water.
They did not reach their destination until the following morning, and
Nell was glad indeed when the trip was ended, for the noisy rugged
fellows on the boat were rough enough to make her heart palpitate for
fear, but though they quarrelled among themselves, they were civil
enough to their two passengers; and at length the boat floated into its
destination. The men were occupied directly, and the child and her
grandfather, after waiting in vain to thank them, or ask whither they
should go, passed out into a crowded noisy street of a manufacturing
village, and stood, in the pouring rain, distressed and confused.
Evening came on. They were still wandering up and down, bewildered by
the hurry they beheld, but had no part in. Shivering with the cold and
damp, ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child needed her
utmost resolution to creep along.
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