"
"Well, then, I'm not likely to laugh. It don't come easy to me, any'ow:
I seen too many clowns."
She handed him the book. He chose a poem, conquered his diffidence, and
began--
"Stratford-on-Avon, Stratford-on-Avon--
My heart is full of woe:
Formerly, once upon a time
It was not ever so."
"The love that then I faltered
I now am forced to stifle;
For the case is completely altered
And I wish I had a rifle."
"I wish I was wrecked
Like Robinson Crusoe,
But you cannot expect
A canal-boat to do so."
"Perhaps I ought to explain, though?" he suggested, breaking off.
"If you don't mind."
"You see I got a brother--a nelder brother, an' by name 'Enery; an' last
year he went for a miner in South Africa, at a place that I can't
neither spell nor pronounce till it winds up with 'bosh.' So we'll call
it Bosh."
"Right-o! But why did he go for that miner? To relieve 'is feelin's?"
"You don't understand. He went out _as_ a miner, havin' been a pit-hand
at the Blackstone Colliery, north o' Bursfield. Well, one week-end--
about a month before he started--he took a noliday an' went a trip with
me to Stratford aboard this very boat.
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