“You could have stayed by the boat as you were told,” Greybeard pointed out sharply. Turning to the others, he said, “My feeling is that we’ll be better off on the river. It is a fine night, I have alcohol in my system to row off. By tomorrow, we can reach Oxford and get work and shelter there. It will be a very different place from what it was when Martha and I were last there, however many years ago that was. Do you all agree to leaving this thieves’ den now?”
Towin coughed, shiffing his lantern from hand to hand.
“Actually, me and the missus was thinking of staying here, like. We made some great friends, see, called Liz and Bob, and we thought we’d join forces with them – if you had no particular objection. We aren’t much set on this idea of going down the river, as you know.” In the moonlight, he smiled his injured wolf’s grin and shuffled his feet.
“I need rest in my condition,” Becky said. She spoke more boldly than her husband, glaring at them through the sickly light. “I’ve had enough of being in that little leaking boat. We’d be better off with these friends of ours.”
“I’m sure that’s not true, Becky,” Martha said.
“Why, I should catch my death of cold in that boat, me in my condition. Tow agrees with me.”
“He always has to,” Pitt observed.
There was a silence as they stood together but separate in the dark. Much lay between them they could never express, currents of liking and resentment, affinity and aversion: vague but not the less strong for that.
“All right, if you’ve decided, we’ll continue without you,” Greybeard said. “Watch your belongings, that’s all I say.”
“We don’t like leaving you, Greybeard,” Towin said. “And you and Charley can keep that bit of money you owe me.”
“It’s entirely your choice.”
“That’s what I said,” Becky said. “We’re about old enough to take care of ourselves, I should reckon.”
As they were shaking hands all round, bidding each other good-bye, Charley started to hop about and scold.
“This fox has picked up all the fleas in Christendom. Isaac, you’re letting them loose on me, you villain!”
Setting the fox down, he ordered it towards the water. The fox understood what was required of it. It moved backwards into the flood, slowly, slowly, brush first and then the rusty length of its body, and finally its head. Pitt held a lantern so that they could see it better.
“What’s he doing? Is he going to drown himself?” Martha asked anxiously.
“No, Martha, only humans take their own lives,” Charley said. “Animals have got more faith. Isaac knows fleas don’t like cold water. This is his way of getting rid of them. They climb right up his body on to his muzzle, see, to avoid a soaking. You watch him now.”
Only part of the fox’s head was above the water. He sank down until his muzzle alone was showing. Then he ducked under completely. A circle of little fleas was left struggling on the surface. Isaac came up a yard away, bounded ashore, shook himself, and raced round in circles before returning to his master.
“I never saw a smarter trick,” Towin said to Becky, nodding his head, as the others climbed into the boats.
“It must be something like that that the world’s doing to human beings, when you work it out – shaking us off its snout.”
“You’re taking a lot of rubbish, Towin Thomas,” she said.
They stood waving as the boats moved slowly away, Towin with his cheeks screwed up to see the particular outline merge with the general gloom.
“Well, there they go,” Charley said, pulling on his paddle. “She’s a sharp-tongued one, but I’m sorry to leave them in such a thieves’ den.”
They were towing Jeff Pitt’s little boat, so that he could be in with them. He said, “Who’s the thieves? It might have been Jingadangelow’s men took our property. On the other hand, I reckon it might just as well have been old Towin. I never did trust him, crafty old blighter.”
“Whoever it was, the Lord will provide for us,” Charley said. He bent his back and guided his paddle deeper into the sedgy waters.