A voice by the canal

An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.

Nell had left the market later than she intended. By the time she reached the canal, fog had covered the fields and reduced the towpath to a pale strip beneath her feet. The water was invisible, but now and then she heard it touch the bank with a slow, secretive sound.

Halfway home, a voice called from below her.

Nell stopped. The handle of her basket became slippery in her hand. She had often been warned about strangers on lonely roads, and every warning returned to her at once.

“A water bird,” she said aloud. “Nothing more.”

She took three quick steps. Then the voice came again, weaker than before.

“Please.”

Nell put down her basket and moved towards the edge. At first she saw only fog and the dark surface of the canal. Then a small white face appeared beneath her. A boy was standing on a narrow shelf of brick just above the water, gripping an iron rung fixed into the wall. His cap floated several yards away.

“Pull me up,” he whispered.

Nell lay flat and reached down, but her fingers stopped well above his wrist. The bricks were wet, and when she moved closer, one knee began to slide. She drew back. The lock-keeper’s cottage was two bends behind her; the nearest houses ahead were hidden by the fog.

“Keep hold of the rung,” she told him. “I am going for help.”

The boy cried out as she stood, and for an instant Nell could not make herself leave him. Then she turned and ran. Brambles caught her skirt, her breath burned in her throat, and twice she almost passed the cottage because its lamp was no more than a yellow stain in the mist.

The lock-keeper came with a rope. Nell returned ahead of him, calling to the boy before she could see the canal. He was still clinging to the rung. Within minutes, the man had lowered the rope and lifted him onto the path.

“You did well to come for me,” the lock-keeper said.

Nell looked back at the basket she had abandoned in the fog. “I nearly walked on.”

“Nearly is not the same as did,” he replied.

Only then did Nell notice that her knees were shaking.