As she drew nearer, Molly could not help but be impressed at the fine figure aboard the barge. Mick Darcy was a tall, well-built man, and standing on the deck at this moment, with the sunshine lightening his earth-coloured curls and those long, strong legs wide apart for balance against the rolling vessel, he made a handsome sight.

With a wide, cheeky grin, Mick pushed the flat cap back on his head and lowered his voice as she looked up from the quayside. ‘You little devil, Molly,’ he laughed. ‘What have you been up to, eh… that some fine lady should be asking after you?’

‘I ain’t been up to nothing,’ she retorted good-humouredly, hitching the dark-eyed child more securely on to her bony hip and keeping a tight hold on the small girl by her side.

‘Well, if you ain’t been up to nothing… how come the gentry are stalking the market-place and offering good money to know your whereabouts, eh? You tell me that, sunshine…! You must have been up to something.’

‘I tell you I ain’t.’ She smiled and her dark beauty startled him. Then, laughing, she added, ‘At least… no more than usual… a fat wallet or a fancy purse here and there, gently confiscated from them as can afford it. Only enough to keep body and soul together, mind.’ Of a sudden, the small girl at her hand broke free. ‘Now then, little Sal,’ Molly warned in a sharp voice, ‘don’t you go wandering off… else like as not you’ll end up in that there canal!’ When the child broke into a run, Molly started after her. ‘Stop her, Mick!’ she yelled.

‘Whoa, my little beauty!’ Mick Darcy chuckled as he swept the frail, scruffy bundle into his arms and flung it high in the air. When it began laughing and squealing, he pressed it to the floor of his barge, playfully prodding its flat little belly until it curled in a heap and hid itself in a tight hug, at the same time letting out bursts of uncontrollable giggling. That is, until Mick came towards her, his fingers pointed from his forehead in the shape of two long horns and his voice wailing like that of a ghost. At that point, the twitching bundle clambered to its legs and ran screeching and laughing towards the galley hatch, where it disappeared into the quarters below.

‘You terror, Mick Darcy,’ chuckled Molly, who had delighted in the whole episode. ‘The poor little thing’ll have nightmares for weeks!’ Taking care not to become entangled in the paraphernalia of ropes that cluttered the deck, she climbed aboard. ‘Got the kettle on, have you?’ she asked, going in the same direction as little Sal. ‘My throat’s parched.’ She cast an accusing glance up to the blue, cloudless sky. ‘There still ain’t no sign of cooler weather,’ she moaned. ‘Have you ever known such a muggy, dry May in all your born days?’

‘Can’t say as I have… and I can’t say as I haven’t, Molly darling,’ he replied, at the same time putting a strong lean hand on her shoulder and gently drawing her to a halt. ‘There…’ he stretched out his arms, ‘give the babby to me. I don’t want to see the pair of you tumbling headlong down that narrow flight of stairs.’ His teeth showed white and straight against his tanned skin as he smiled down on her. ‘Besides… knowing you, you’d like as not fall on my old mammy’s best china, and she’d haunt me from the grave.’