The canal, too, was deserted, save for one long monkey-boat, black as Charon's barge, that lay moored to a post on the towpath, some seventy-odd yards up stream, near where the wall of the Orphanage ended.

Beyond this, and over a line of ragged thorns, the bulk of a red-brick Brewery--its roof crowned with a sky-sign--closed the view.
The monkey-boat lay with her stem down-stream, and her after-part--her habitable quarters--covered by a black tarpaulin.

A solitary man was at work shovelling coal out of her middle hold into a large metal bucket.
As Tilda hobbled towards him he hoisted the full bucket on his shoulders, staggered across the towpath with it, and shot its contents into a manhole under the brick wall.

Tilda drew near and came to a halt, watching him.
"Afternoon," said the man, beginning to shovel again.
"Afternoon," responded Tilda.
He was a young man--she could detect this beneath his mask of coal dust.
He wore a sack over his shoulders, and a black sou'wester hat with a hind-flap that fell low over his neck.

But she liked the look in his eyes, though the rims of them were red and the brows caked with grit.
She liked his voice, too.